Lung Qin Xiang
by Xanrivash
Summary: A freak accident gives Demyx a dragon's powers, but only in the Land of Dragons. When an act of defiance leaves him on the run from the Organization, he tries to harness his dragon powers to protect himself, and all hell breaks loose...
1. The Creation of Lung Qin Xiang

"Well, on first glance, the Land of Dragons doesn't seem nearly so impressive as the name would suggest," Axel declared, squinting at their surroundings. "Or maybe it's just because we're in the middle of a damn rice paddy. You wouldn't happen to know your way around a rice paddy, would you?"

Demyx snorted. "Are you kidding me? I think I've done my share of odd work, but thus far, working on a rice farm hasn't made the list." He kicked idly at the mud, then suddenly bent over and picked something up. "Holy crap."

Axel leaned over to see whatever Demyx had in his hand. "What is that? Besides a tiny round object?"

Demyx's voice was a little awed as he rubbed at the object with a grimy sleeve - these peasant outfits must have come with a complimentary layer of grime. "I think it's a pearl."

Axel stared at him for a long moment. "...I call bullshit."

Demyx shook his head insistently. "I'm serious. I think it's a pearl."

Axel didn't bother trying to contain his laughter, and probably couldn't have if he had tried. "A pearl? In the middle of a freakin' rice paddy? Are you out of your mind?"

Demyx glared at him, affronted. "Look at the way it shines," he said, holding it up for Axel's inspection.

Axel rolled his eyes. "Shines like a glass bead, as far as I can tell."

"No...it shines like a pearl, doesn't it?" Demyx held it up to his mouth, breathing on it gently in an attempt to steam some of the dirt away.

Axel rolled his eyes. "The chances of that actually being a pearl are approximately jack in shit, okay? All you found is a shiny little bead."

Demyx removed the object from in front of his mouth long enough to say "Dammit, I know it's freaky, but I swear, it is a pearl."

Axel rolled his eyes again, trying hard not to simply sock him. "It's not freaky, it's fantasy. That. Is. Not. A. Pearl. Is not, and cannot be. Got it memorized?" He turned and walked off in the direction of the nearest town, deliberately jostling Demyx fairly hard. Demyx choked and yelped. "What's the matter, drop it?"

Demyx's voice was oddly choked and strained. "I think I swallowed it."

Axel turned around to look at his face - quite serious - and burst out laughing again. "Well, I guess that's one way to find out if it's a pearl or just a bead! Wait until it comes out the other end!"

Demyx glared at him. "Ax, it's not funny." Then a strange look crossed his face, and he put one hand to his stomach. "Uh...Ax...I...don't feel so good..."

Axel was unfazed. "Okay, throwing it up would be a lot quicker, I'll give you that..."

"No...it's not like that...it's..." Demyx started, hesitated, and stopped, looking confused and a little pained. Then his expression changed to alarm, even fear. His face went pale, and a faint sheen of sweat appeared on his forehead. "Oh, Kingdom Hearts..."

Axel blinked, confused and more than a little alarmed himself. "What? What's going -" Demyx suddenly groaned loudly, clutched at his stomach, and collapsed to the ground in slow motion. "Demyx! What the hell - are you okay?!"

"No - pain - hurts -" Demyx was visibly fighting for every breath, paralyzed by obvious agony. Axel dropped to his knees next to him, not sure what to do or even if there was anything he could do. "Axel, help me - !"

Axel slid one hand behind Demyx's head, forcing his tormented friend to look at him. "Demyx, what happened? What did this?" he asked, feeling utterly helpless.

"Pearl - swallowed - it's poison - I - Axel, I'm dying!" Those last words came out an agonized shriek.

"No! Demyx, you can't - don't - I won't - Demyx..." Axel trailed off helplessly as Demyx stiffened one last time, then went limp. His eyes were still wide open but lifeless and vacant, staring into nothingness. Squeezing tears from his eyes, Axel hugged his body gently, before he could fade. "Demyx, I'm so sorry...I didn't mean to make you swallow the damn thing...I didn't know this would happen..." _How fucking pointless_, he thought. It had been so sudden, so horribly sudden - within ten minutes of their arrival, one of his closest friends had been transformed from a living, breathing, thinking _person_ to a lifeless corpse that would no doubt fade into mist shortly, all because he'd been bumped a bit too hard at the wrong moment. "Sorry" was a waste of breath at this point. What he really wished he could say was "goodbye".

A thick fog suddenly rolled in unannounced, blanketing everything in whiteness. Axel could see absolutely nothing, not even Demyx's body, though he could feel it dissipating in his hands. Briefly, he wondered if the clouds had come down to bid farewell to the rainmaker, or to gather his remains as he faded.

Then the fog rolled back, and Axel suddenly found himself confronted by a dragon. Serpentine, long teeth, sharp claws, a hundred feet long if it was an inch, capable of using an 18-wheeler as a chew toy. He did the only really sensible thing he could do at that point - he fainted.

* * *

Axel came to somewhere in midair, and found himself clutched in the dragon's talons. Afraid to think about where the dragon was flying him to, or what it would do with him once they arrived, and knowing for a fact he was going to be airsick as soon as his stomach woke up, he fainted again.

The next time he came around, he was lying on a rocky ledge, with a blanket draped over him. It was still daylight, so he figured he couldn't have been out for too long - or he'd been out for over 24 hours. When he realized he was encircled by a wall that seemed to be made up of sea-blue scales, he almost fainted a third time, but eventually admitted that the dragon had had all sorts of chances to eat him already and hadn't, so it probably wasn't going to. It still took him a while to work up the nerve to stand up and actually talk to it. "Um...hi. If you're not going to eat me...what are you doing here?"

The dragon lifted its head, turned to face him, and opened its mouth. Axel had been expecting some sort of roar or growl, or maybe a hiss, but the sound that came out was nothing if not musical - like a hundred stringed instruments playing in harmony. "Um. Okay. Wow. That was interesting, but what was it supposed to mean?"

Assuming dragon expressions meant at all the same things as human expressions, Axel thought the dragon suddenly looked sad. Its sea-colored eyes blinked mournfully at him, and the sandy crest on its head suddenly drooped. "I'm sorry, but I seriously got nothing out - holy shit." He'd thought for a moment that the dragon looked an awful lot like Demyx pouting. Then something clicked. "D-Demyx? Is - that seriously..."

The dragon drew back a little, then bowed its head and closed its eyes. Another mysterious fog rolled over, and when it rolled back, Demyx was standing there, with his head bowed and his eyes closed.

"- get to be a habit," Demyx was saying. Axel blinked - he was lying on the ground again, covered in the blanket. "I mean, yeah, this has to be at least as big a shock to you as it is to me, but come on. I don't think I've ever seen you just faint like that, and twice -"

"What the fuck is going on?!" Axel sputtered, interrupting him. "I mean, you died - you were dead - you faded - and then this dragon - but _you_ were the dragon - and now you're here and - " He shook his head. He was babbling uselessly and he knew it.

Demyx chuckled softly - there was now a strange light and a strange depth in his eyes, like the sun shining from the bottom of the ocean. "I think I get what you're saying. You're right, I was a dragon. Still am, in fact."

Axel looked at him closely. "Still are? You don't look much like one now."

Demyx favored him with an odd smile, then closed his eyes and bowed his head. A moment later, the fog was clearing once more and there was a sea-blue dragon where he had been standing. When the dragon's eyes opened, Axel could see clearly - that wasn't a shape he was used to, but those were unquestionably Demyx's eyes, still possessing that strange light and depth. "A _lung_ can turn into a human and back at will, but it's always a _lung_, not a human," Demyx explained when he returned to human form.

Axel scratched his head, feeling hopelessly confused. "What do you mean by a _lung_? Since when did you speak fluent Chinese?"

"Since I accidentally ate a dragon pearl, thank you kindly. I owe you one. And a _lung_ is a dragon."

Axel felt like he was caught in the weirdest dream he might ever have. "So...that pearl you found...was a magic pearl that turned you into a dragon?"

"Yes."

"Right. Just wanted to make sure I was understanding that right." Axel took a deep breath. "Demyx, what the hell is going on? I'm gonna die of confusion in a second..."

Demyx sighed and sat down on a rock. "Well, it's interesting - dragons, at least in the Land of Dragons, are very wise and knowledgeable beings, which I can already tell is going to come in handy. That being said, I have no idea how to answer you."

"Oh, fucking joy and joyness." Axel sighed and stared up at the sky. "I probably don't need to tell you how confused I am. Hell, I already did."

"You're probably at least as confused as I am, and I have to admit, I'm pretty damned confused myself. I can't help but wonder if I messed something up by finding that dragon pearl. Like maybe some great hero was meant to find it and become a dragon, instead of a passing Nobody."

"If that's your biggest concern right now, I envy you deeply."

"It's not. My biggest concern is how badly this is going to screw up our mission, because, in my suddenly vast wisdom and knowledge, I have completely forgotten what we were supposed to be doing here."

"Still Demyx through and through. There's a relief."

"Don't make me eat you."

Laughing to himself, Axel pulled the mission papers out of his pockets. "This was supposed to be a basic, straightforward mission, though a pretty damn long one considering the size of the world. Monitoring Heartless activity and shit. Expected completion within eleven to fourteen days, allowing for brief returns for 'medical supplies' - meaning insulin and hearing aid batteries and stuff - with the option to call for backup if it doesn't look like we can make that deadline. But that's cake, if you can fly. We could finish it in three." He suddenly noticed Demyx was staring off into space. "Demyx? What's up?"

"Axel, do you believe in destiny?"

"...The hell did that come from?"

"Never mind. I'm just thinking it might be better to take the full fourteen days."

"...Are all dragons suckers for punishment? Or is your new wisdom and knowledge not nearly so vast as you think it should be?"

Demyx gave him a withering glare. "You can go home if you want. Tell the Superior you preferred to let me do the whole mission by myself."

"No thanks. I choose life."

"Good. Now, unless you were really keen on spending those fourteen days camping in the mountains like we were originally supposed to, I should probably give you a crash-course in local etiquette."

Axel stared at him. "...I must be missing the connection."

"The connection lies in finding places to sleep indoors. Which first demands not making fools of ourselves in front of potential hosts. Now the first real key part, and I know this is going to be tough for you, is - always respect your elders..."

* * *

Sooner or later, they agreed to take all the time allotted; Axel eventually conceded that it was more than possible that Demyx knew something he didn't just then. At first, he'd thought Demyx intended to go the whole way on foot, like he hadn't suddenly become a giant supernatural creature that could fly wherever he wanted to go, but he soon learned otherwise. Demyx wanted the extra time to more thorougly examine the cities and towns; he was intending to fly between them. And he intended for Axel to ride. Axel, who was highly prone to motion sickness in all its various forms, couldn't have been less thrilled if Demyx had suggested taking the _Titanic_, but there was really no other way for him to keep up. "I'm gonna spew all over your back, and then you'll just throw me off," he'd muttered the first time he climbed up behind Demyx's head and found as secure a grip as possible without grabbing any sensitive frills or tendrils, but the ride was astonishingly smooth. In fact, if he kept his eyes closed so he couldn't see how far away the ground was or how fast it was moving under them, he really didn't feel too bad.

When they landed outside the next city or town, and Demyx turned back into a human, it didn't take Axel more than five minutes to start finding it hard to believe that he and the great blue dragon who'd been ferrying him around were one and the same. It was easy to think of "Demyx" and "the dragon" as two separate entities, and forget that one could transform into the other and back at will. It was even easier to forget that the dragon form was apparently supposed to be his default state.

"Does it - hurt - to change back and forth?" he asked on the fifth day, after they landed just outside the largest city so far.

Demyx stared off into space, not seeming to see what was in front of his eyes. "It did the first time," he murmured softly. Then he shook his head, as if snapping back to reality. "No. Not anymore. Everything just goes fuzzy for a moment, and - well, the fog clears and I'm a whole different shape. It's not difficult, really."

"How bad was it the first time?"

"...Think about that question for a while, and then decide if you really want to know or not."

Axel thought for a moment, then shook his head. "No, probably not. Anyway, which of these charming hovels and tenements were you intending we spend the night in here?" Despite the fact that Demyx was probably capable of making all classes fall at his feet in reverence just by announcing he was a dragon, he preferred to simply introduce himself and Axel politely and humbly beg for a bite to eat and a place to spend the night, and he had a distinct preference for the houses of the poor. That confused the hell out of Axel - not only were the accommodations the antithesis of luxury, the owners could probably ill afford to give up so much as a grain of cooked rice to a pair of travelers - but he certainly couldn't make any arrangements by himself; whatever Demyx decided, went.

Demyx raised an eyebrow at him. "Axel, I thought you were tired of associating with the lesser classes..."

Axel held up his hands defensively. "No no no - I was just -"

Demyx laughed and waved a hand. "Just kidding. Mostly, I've been figuring the poorest of the poor were the ones who needed the luck of a dragon's visit most. Tonight, though, I was hoping to work our way into something more luxurious. This is the provincial capital - in case you didn't see that big fancy complex on our way in, that's the Imperial Governor's palace."

Axel rubbed his forehead - he always kept his eyes closed while they were flying; he didn't have the slightest clue what Demyx was talking about, other than that it sounded nice. "And you're going to try to get us in there for the night?"

"Sounds like a good way to finish a day of chasing Heartless, don't you think? Depending, of course, on whether or not the Emperor chose a good Governor for this province," Demyx said blithely as he turned down a narrow sidestreet. Axel was forced to abandon any potential train of thought and follow him before he disappeared.

* * *

_This is gonna fail fifteen ways from next Sunday,_ Axel thought to himself as he and Demyx waited outside the palace gates for the Governor's servants to at least come investigate. _They'll assume he's an impostor and throw him out on his ear or something, or maybe make a joke out of the two of us. All hail the mighty dragon and his trusted companion - a couple college-age nuts, one of whom is basically helpless except for the magical understanding of this world's dominant language. If I didn't have that, I'd be completely screwed. Like I'm not already._ He stopped glancing around nervously and faced forward just in time for the gate to open and a supercilious little man in silk robes to peer out. The little man looked at them like they were something a horse had left in the street, and seemed about to shut the gate in their faces, but Demyx spoke up before he had a chance. "Kindly inform your esteemed master that Lung Qin Xiang is here."

The little man's expression changed, from mild distaste to confusion, suspicion, and a certain amount of awe. "You...are Lung Qin Xiang, I may presume?" Demyx nodded once; Axel kept his mouth shut, as that was usually the smartest thing he could do in most any circumstance. The man seemed to think for a while, then he bowed low to Demyx - and obviously only to Demyx. "If the exalted dragon Qin Xiang and his...honored companion...would give us the great honor of waiting here for a few moments, I shall inform the esteemed Imperial Governor of your arrival. He will have just sat down to dine, I fear, so if your humble servant is delayed in his return, please, spare a bit of your infinite patience."

He disappeared, leaving Axel scratching his head. "Lung Qin Xiang?"

Demyx shrugged. "I needed a name to give him, and I picked an accurate one, and one that was going to impress him. Dragons - at least the _lungs_, the great dragons - outrank everyone but the Emperor, and the Emperor is their equal, not their superior. They don't call this the Land of Dragons because it sounds cool. He was actually holding back some - he's probably not sure I am who I say I am, and is hedging his bets."

Axel snorted. "Still treated me like horse crap."

Demyx rolled his eyes. "Axel, you're over a foot taller than the local average, you have bright red hair and green eyes, and you have visible tattoos, which the locals consider a barbaric custom, or a suitable punishment for criminals. You could have 'Foreigner' tattooed on your forehead and it probably wouldn't make much of a difference at this point. He probably wanted to kick you out and throw the kitchen trash after you. Your one and only saving grace is traveling with a dragon - it gets you a promotion from 'foreign devil' to 'honored companion of the dragon Qin Xiang'."

"...What about you, blondie?"

"I _am _the dragon Qin Xiang. That pardons a hell of a lot."

Just then, the little man returned, kneeling and bowing so low his forehead touched the ground. "Exalted Lung Qin Xiang, my esteemed master the Imperial Governor humbly asks whether you and your honored companion would do him the unfathomable kindness of joining him at his repast. Also, he has the great hope that you would graciously share some of your celestial wisdom and power in assisting him with a certain...political problem."

Demyx glanced at Axel, as if Axel could possibly give him any useful advice, then nodded at the still-prostrate man. "Kindly inform your esteemed master that we accept his gracious invitation."

The man immediately sprang to his feet. "Excellent - most excellent - allow me to do you the service of leading you to where my esteemed master and his family dine."

They followed him into the mazelike palace, trying to memorize the route as they went. Demyx leaned over and whispered one last piece of advice to Axel. "Whatever they serve you, don't ask what it is; watch what everyone else is doing with it, then do the same. And anything that seems alcoholic - don't drink it. Claim religious reasons or whatever if you have to. If you do, whatever you do, don't get into any sort of religious debate."

"I _know_ that," Axel hissed back, just as they arrived at their destination.

As soon as Demyx - well, Lung Qin Xiang - was announced, the entire room went still for a long moment, then everyone promptly bowed to him to some degree or another, giving Axel a little time to assess the room. It was large and crowded; either the Chinese still did plural marriages and harems, or the Governor's extended extended family lived with him. Unexpectedly, he was led to some lesser seat, among the distant cousins or quasi-legitimate sons or whoever they might be, while Demyx was graciously escorted to the seat next to the Governor himself - a tall, rather imposing man just out of middle age who had a remarkably warm and amiable smile. Demyx obviously didn't like being seated so far apart any more than Axel did; he was visibly protesting to the Governor, who seemed to counter all his arguments with calmness and firmness. Eventually Demyx gave up and contented himself with smiling weakly to Axel from across the room; Axel could only smile weakly back.

They were apparently too late for the main service, so food was rushed out to them from the kitchens; Axel tried to distract himself from wondering why he and Demyx had been separated and what exactly he was eating by thinking about fireworks. He had only limited success, but he did notice that the food tasted much better than he'd expected, and ever so much better than the bland rice and weak tea he'd been getting used to. He'd been expecting dainty, delicately flavored little tidbits, not flavorful dumplings and roast pork and...well, whatever he was eating. Even the constant green tea tasted somehow different here, as if they'd added some spice to that too; he was drinking that instead of whatever looked like wine. Demyx had had a point; he got drunk a little too easily. Hell, even if it was alcoholic, he didn't need it to feel good. This was the best meal he'd had in days; just then, he felt entirely warm, content, and relaxed almost to the point of lethargy. Demyx obviously wasn't feeling so content; Axel could tell even from this distance that he was in the middle of an argument with the Governor. Probably about that "political problem" the servant mentioned. They needed more of this good food, both of them; they'd probably have more luck talking if they mellowed a little. The Governor had just said something that made Demyx angry; he was drawing back, and glaring at the older man, and saying something else. The Governor just shrugged, and gestured abruptly...

Suddenly three heavily armed men appeared out of nowhere and dragged Axel upright; one of them held the blade of a sword to his throat. He tried to summon fire, to fight, to protest, even to yell in surprise, but for some reason, his mind was just not working fast enough, his body was always one step behind where it should be - and one lazy thought trickled through: _I've been drugged_.

Across the suddenly-silent room, Axel saw Demyx's horrified face, dead white with shock, and heard the Governor's voice clearly: "Now, Lung Qin Xiang, we may discuss business." Then something heavy crashed painfully against the back of his skull, and everything went dark.

* * *

Axel was dragged back to consciousness fighting against a dream of Port Royal, and being chained at the neck, wrists, and ankles in a tiny, waterlogged cage. Reality proved to be little better - he was chained by the neck to a short wooden stake, and his wrists and ankles were chained behind him, trapping him in a kneeling position. And he'd been stripped to the waist while he was out. At least they hadn't chained him underwater. His head was aching horribly, though, and he groaned involuntarily.

_Crack!_

A line of white-hot pain suddenly burned across his back, and he yelled. He heard, or thought he heard, Demyx calling his name from somewhere fairly close, and he tried to crane his neck and look for him, but as soon as he tried, the whip - that's what it had to be - the whip cracked across his back again, carving another trail of pain as it went. He tried unsuccessfully to bite back a scream, and almost bit through his lip.

"Axel! Axel, no!" That _was_ Demyx; it had to be, and he was close enough to hear Axel as well. "What are you doing to him?! Stop hurting him!"

"Demyx?" Axel called, but he could only get that one word out before the whip cracked again, and anything else he might have tried to say was lost in a scream.

"All else can come later, exalted dragon. For now, we have business of a most urgent nature to discuss." That was the Governor's voice, and there had been a rather nasty inflection on the words "exalted dragon", like he didn't believe Demyx was one. Axel wondered why Demyx didn't turn into a dragon and simply eat the douchebag, though for all he knew, there were armed guards holding a sword to his throat too.

"Most urgent nature?! What the hell do you think is more urgent than this?" Axel had never heard Demyx sound like that before, and the combination of rage and raw terror chilled him. He wondered what the Governor was threatening - and if it would be worse than what he was already doing.

"Calm yourself, noble Qin Xiang. The fate of one foreign devil who chanced to be traveling with you is -"

Demyx cut the Governor off sharply. "You call him a foreign devil again and I'll -" As if on cue, the whip came slashing across Axel's back once more. He and Demyx screamed simultaneously.

"Patience, noble dragon. Please, do me the unfathomable kindness of hearing what I have to say." Axel could almost hear the warm smile in the Governor's voice - warm like a wolf's when its prey is helpless, he now thought.

There was a very long silence. Axel was tempted to try and find where Demyx and the Governor were, but he had the feeling that as soon as he tried to turn, he'd get the whip again. When Demyx finally spoke, he sounded wary, and still terrified. "...What do you have to say?"

Whatever the Governor had to say, he said it too softly for Axel to make out. If he hadn't been in so much pain, he might have strained to listen in, but just then he was too busy wondering if his back was bleeding or not. Demyx's reaction was a lot clearer, and impossible to misunderstand. "No! I - never! I won't! I refuse! There's no way! How dare you!"

The silence hung in the air like an approaching thunderstorm; for a moment, the world held its breath. Then the whip strokes started falling again, not one at a time, but hard, fast, and relentless. Axel tried to keep his jaws clenched, tried his hardest not to scream, because he realized now why they were torturing him - they weren't trying to break him, they were trying to break Demyx, without hurting their precious dragon directly - and if Demyx heard him scream any more, he _would_ break, and these sick sadistic people could force the gentle musician to do something horrible, or all kinds of horrible somethings, just by keeping Axel as a hostage, and even if they both lived long enough to be rescued it might be too late by then, it _would_ be too late for him because he'd die without a ready supply of insulin, and he _could not break now_, because he could not let Demyx break - but the pain was too terrible, too hellish, unendurable, and he screamed until his throat went raw and he tasted blood.

Then - the nonstop beating ended abruptly, and Axel might as well have been alone in the universe, with nothing but his burning throat and his shredded back and the chain around his neck and the blood dripping down his skin. Gradually, he became aware of the faint sounds of sobbing. "I'll do it," Demyx whimpered softly. "I'll do whatever you want. Please - stop hurting him."

Axel sighed and hung his head. Demyx had broken.

* * *

_Creek-creek-creek._

Crickets were supposed to be lucky in the Land of Dragons. Right then, if Axel had been free to move, he would have gleefully squished, stomped, or ignited every single one in the area, if not the city, if not the world. Unfortunately, he was chained up like a prisoner awaiting execution - which he was starting to suspect he was - his back was in tatters, he was starting to get cold, and someone he never got to see kept pouring a bucket of saltwater over his back on a regular basis, probably to keep him awake; it stung his injuries like every single whip cut made fresh at once, and coincidentally blunted his powers to the point of uselessness. And those damn crickets would not _shut up_.

_Creek-creek-creek_.

He was starting to truly hate crickets.

Kingdom Hearts, his back _killed_.

What the hell were these sickos forcing Demyx into? Killing people? Drowning a whole army at once? Something Demyx could do, no doubt, but something he'd rather kill himself than do. Hell, he might kill himself; he'd attempted before for other reasons. Axel wondered briefly what would become of him if he did - they certainly wouldn't need him as a hostage anymore.

_Creek-creek-creek_.

Damn those crickets anyhow.

What would Demyx do, after he died? Run away? Get revenge? Probably not revenge. This was Demyx, after all. It seemed pretty damn unlikely that they'd be rescued before Axel's blood sugar killed him, whether he died of hypoglycemia from getting insulin from his pump and no food, or hyperglycemia after the insulin in his pump ran out. They were probably keeping their precious dragon under guard, so Demyx couldn't get away and get help. Then again, he _was_ a dragon. Maybe he could.

Why hadn't he just attacked in the first place, instead of dithering and acquiescing?

Probably because he was Demyx, and attacking was never the first thing that came to Demyx's mind.

_Creek-creek-creek._

Stupid. Fucking. Crickets.

What time was it, anyway? How damn long had he been chained out here like a dog? Kingdom Hearts, he felt so tired and weak - was that from the beating he'd taken, or was hypoglycemia setting in?

...What the _hell_ was that? It sounded like a lion the size of a double-decker bus, except it kept going - and going - and going - and - oh, no, was this little courtyard flooding? If it was, he wouldn't have to wait for his blood sugar to kill him...

All of a sudden, the moonlight was blotted out. Axel looked up with difficulty just in time to see the silver-blue form of Lung Qin Xiang arcing across the night sky, his tail still silhouetted against the moon for an instant. _Demyx, what are you doing?_ he thought.

The courtyard was definitely flooding. The water was inching steadily up to his chained wrists. Was Demyx responsible for that? If so, did he know Axel was down there, in danger of drowning?

A moment later, the glimmering dragon did a neat loop and came back in his direction - no, towards him, towards this courtyard - there was barely enough room for him, even coiling himself all the way around the courtyard so that his tail overlapped his nose - and then Demyx was standing there - an instant later, it seemed, Demyx had rushed to Axel's side, and was prying the collar from around his neck with his bare hands. "Glad I got here in time - fit to ride?" he asked in a low voice. "Oh, hell, what'd they do to you? Dammit...your back's a bloody mess..."

Axel bit his lip weakly - that calm and control wasn't like Demyx; Demyx should be on the verge of a breakdown; a breakdown could get them both killed and being calm and controlled was the only way he'd get them both out of here. "I...might be able to ride..." he said, gritting his teeth against the pain.

Demyx shook his head decisively. "Not likely. I won't risk you passing out and falling off." He quickly turned back into dragon form, turned to face Axel, and breathed a blue mist over him - and suddenly, his back no longer hurt at all, or his head, and his mind was much clearer than it had been a second ago. "There. Now you can ride," he said a moment later.

Axel shook his head in disbelief as Demyx pried the chains off his wrists and ankles, ignoring the still-rising water levels. "But - how did you -"

Demyx cut him off. "All dragon magic is not destructive. Prepare for boarding."

As the two of them soared off into the night, Axel took one last look at the Governor's palace, still plainly visible in the moonlight. As he watched, the lacquered pillars and elaborate walls buckled and fell in on themselves, and the whole palace complex collapsed with a resounding splash. As the remains were washed away by the mysterious flood, he squeezed his eyes shut, not sure he wanted to look anymore.

* * *

"I think you owe me an explanation," Axel said once they were back on solid ground and Demyx had regained human form. He also kind of thought he was owed an apology, but he didn't mention that. After all, Demyx had not only saved his skin (after endangering it needlessly, or so it seemed from his perspective), he'd healed him.

Whether or not he thought he owed Axel an explanation, Demyx was rather slow to give him one; instead, he took a good look at Axel's back while there was still enough moonlight to see by. "There are still scars there," he said, frowning deeply.

"As long as it's not bleeding or hurting anymore, I'm about as happy as I can get," Axel said fervently. "So...the explanation?"

Demyx continued to frown over his freshly-healed injuries for some moments before giving one. "...There's a gang of rebels in the area," he explained finally. "Religious fanatics, who claim to have a divine mission to overthrow the current emperor and coincidentally install their own leader on the throne. There have been some...acts of violence, associated with this gang, and of course it would enhance the Imperial Governor's prestige and standing with the Emperor if he were the one to see them dealt with...hell, I might have helped him willingly if he'd asked me straight-up without all this..." His hands clenched into fists. "He was so damn polite and roundabout in his wording...I couldn't even figure out what he was asking...all I was sure of was that I probably wouldn't like it. He told me I might as well agree even if I didn't know exactly what he was asking, because I _would_ agree to it sooner or later...I asked him what made him think so, and..." He sighed heavily and sat down. "I never expected him to do what he did," he said in a much softer voice.

Axel didn't know what to say to that to save his life. "I hope not," was what eventually came out.

Demyx groaned and scrubbed at his eyes - probably wiping away tears. "Sorry for freezing up like that," he said in something close to a whisper. "I know I should have done something right then...but I couldn't think clearly. I couldn't even see you; the Governor and I were behind a silk screen, so I could hear you. I could hear you scream..." His voice faltered and died for a few moments, then he shook himself. "Ax, I'm so sorry, but I didn't even know where you were; I just knew they were hurting you, and all I wanted was to get them to stop..." He sighed. "Too late to do anything about it now, I guess."

Axel shrugged. "I think you did do something. You came back, washed out the palace, and saved my ass. And something tells me you didn't go out and kill off all the rebels first."

Demyx sighed again and nodded. "Almost as soon as the Governor's guards started leading me away from wherever you were, I started thinking about ways I could get out of there, and rescue you while I was at it. I...I guess the dragon part of my mind was really starting to set in, at that point. If that makes sense. I know I couldn't come up with anything like that normally." He stood up again, gazing at the moon. "The Governor and his entourage led me to a wooded mountain valley and told me the rebel camp was supposed to be somewhere in the valley. I think they were surprised when I did turn into a dragon, though whether it was a pleasant or unpleasant surprise I'm not sure." He paused for a few moments. "I flew out of their sight behind the woods, turned back into a human, came back through the woods, and ambushed them as a dragon."

Axel stared at him - was this really Demyx, talking so calmly, even proudly, about taking a group of men unawares in the form of one of the most dangerous predators in the worlds? Men he had every reason to want revenge on? Did he...could he have really...Axel shook his head in distress as Demyx continued. "Once the entourage had scattered, I turned and headed back for the palace. I wasn't sure where they were keeping you - I just knew it was outdoors - so I just flew circuits around the place until I saw you. You must have heard me - I know you did; I saw your eyes when you looked up. It's very handy that they glow like they do." Axel saw Demyx smile faintly in the moonlight. "Everyone in the palace certainly heard me, and got out as soon as they realized it was flooding. The next Imperial Governor is going to have a job to do rebuilding it." The smile became a little more savage.

Axel stared blankly, hoping Demyx didn't mean what he thought he meant. "The next Imperial Governor...you didn't...did you actually...you didn't, did you?"

Demyx's smile widened, revealing sharpened teeth gleaming in the moonlight. "Maybe." Then his expression leveled out. "We'd better get back home, just in case...I don't know off the top of my head what dragon healing can or can't do."

Axel shook his head. "I dunno - you as a dragon...ah, never mind. You're right; let's go home." _You as a dragon scare the hell out of me sometimes, and not just because you can turn into a huge reptile with sharp teeth_, he didn't say.

Demyx very calmly opened a portal to Vexen's lab. Vexen looked up sharply when he saw them - apparently he never went to bed. "What have the two of you managed to get yourselves into this time?" he asked, irritated.

"Take a look at Axel's back..." Demyx said, with absolutely none of the self-assurance he'd had a minute ago. Axel glanced back at him - the strange look in his eyes was gone, along with his confidence, poise, and just about all the color in his face. It was suddenly very pale white, tending towards green. "I...well, uh, he can fill you in..." Demyx suddenly swallowed hard, then raced for the nearest trash can.

Axel sighed. At least he'd waited until the crisis was over before coming apart at the seams.

* * *

"Are you _sure_ you're fit to come back so soon?"

Demyx rolled his eyes. "Rox, that's the two dozenth time you or someone else has asked me that question. And for the two dozenth time, yes. I'm sure. Do I look like I'm going to fall apart anytime soon?"

Roxas looked sideways at him, privately admitting that Demyx looked pretty calm right then and wondering to what extent he could trust that apparent calm. "Well, when you and Axel came back three days ago, Vexen had to forcibly sedate you to get you to calm down at all. You've eaten about one meal a day since then, and I don't think you've slept naturally without waking up screaming every two hours. If I were Xigbar, I think I'd have rather gone myself than let you finish the mission, with or without a new partner."

Demyx smiled thinly, his eyes shining strangely in the sunlight. "Ah...yeah...Xigbar...I - explained a few things to him. I convinced him I not only could, but should be allowed to finish this mission, and _then_ get some time off."

Roxas wasn't convinced. "Then I'm not sure the Superior shouldn't have overruled him."

"He probably told the Superior what I told him, and the Superior agreed." It was very hard to believe Demyx had been an absolute wreck a few short hours before - he had more poise and self-confidence now than Roxas had ever known him to possess. Granted, self-confidence was never Demyx's primary attribute.

Roxas still didn't think he should have been allowed back on duty so soon, and he tried the last card he had. "It's supposed to be a long mission, though. Long hikes, not much food, not much rest - and you still have a week's worth of work to do. Are you sure you're going to hold up for that long?"

Demyx laughed softly, and the strange light in his eyes caught and held Roxas's attention. "Don't worry, Rox - life in the Land of Dragons may not be quite as tough as you were led to believe." His tone suddenly became dead serious. "And trust me - what happened to Axel is _not_ going to happen to you." Then he bowed his head and closed his eyes, and a strange mist rolled in.

* * *

AN: I love dreams. They're so inspiring. Even weird dreams about people who can turn into Chinese dragons. I worked on this on and off almost the entire time I was on vacation.

Yes, I know Dragon!Demyx is kind of scary and very much unlike our favorite deaf sitarist. Just wait for Part II.

Disclaimer: I don't own Kingdom Hearts, got it memorized?


	2. The Revenge of Lung Qin Xiang

"Hey - the Superior told me to tell you he wants to talk to you as soon as reasonably possible."

Saix made no response, positive or otherwise; he continued to stare at the sky with a distant expression. Eventually, he spoke up. "Two, are there any upcoming missions involving dragons, or to the Land of Dragons?"

Xigbar just stared blankly at the Luna Diviner's back. "...Is there any particular reason you're asking?"

Saix's finger traced out an abstract pattern in the stars. "You see the Dragon, with both Jupiter and Mars towards its head...trouble and conflict, and great powers unleashed, and all connected somehow to dragons. And you see how close it all is to Kingdom Hearts - the trouble will strike close to home, and affect all of us."

Xigbar nodded semi-comprehendingly - he didn't have the foggiest idea how Saix managed to find sense and meaning out of a bunch of glowing balls of gas and the patterns they made, but he was right too often to not take seriously. "Well...when you explain it like that...there is one mission to the Land of Dragons on the schedule for tomorrow. We were going to send Axel to try to get his hands on an artifact called the Jade Dragon Ring." He stared at the sky, trying to figure out what exactly Saix was seeing in the stars.

Saix finally turned and glanced at him with glowing yellow eyes. "Why Eight, and not Nine?"

"Because we had a different mission that we figured no one but Demyx had much of a chance at...should I give him the Land of Dragons mission instead?"

Saix shook his head, turning back to the night sky. "...No. I...suspect it would do no good and possibly great harm."

Xigbar sighed. "Think it should be called off entirely?"

"It might be a wise idea..." Saix continued to stare at the sky distractedly, as if he was only half-aware he wasn't alone on the balcony. Xigbar shook his head and walked off, wondering if his original message had even gotten through.

Neptune, the sea-blue world, is one of the most distant of the planets, impossible to see without the benefit of a powerful telescope. There was no way for either Saix or Xigbar to notice it was taking the place of the dragon's eye.

* * *

"For the love of Kingdom Hearts, you two, please, talk about something - anything - other than Halo."

Axel punched Demyx lightly in the shoulder. "Hey, I'm allowed to gloat a little, right? Besides, you should have seen the look on his face last night - for a while, I was sure he was gonna hit me. I mean physically, not in the game."

Roxas glared at him. "If you don't stop bragging about it, I still might."

Axel laughed as he poured himself another cup of coffee. "You need to learn how to lose gracefully."

"You need to learn how to win gracefully," Roxas shot back.

"He's got a point. But I think you both need to learn how to leave it at the Xbox, seriously. You're even annoying me." Demyx glanced up as Xigbar started handing out mission assignments. "Maybe I'll get lucky and you two will be sent to different worlds for the day instead of bickering about Halo, and let me play in peace."

Axel quirked an eyebrow and grinned cheekily at him. "Play Halo?"

"Sitar, you nitwit." Demyx snorted, then scowled as an envelope was handed to him. "The day I start getting into those brain-eating games you two play, you'd better set up guest bedrooms for the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse," he muttered as he opened it.

"That's too bad," Roxas cut in. "Axel really needs an opponent he can beat without either cheating or relying on luck."

Axel punched him lightly in the shoulder. "I got you, what do I need another one for?"

Their argument was cut off by a choking sound from the Melodious Nocturne. They both turned to see Demyx's face had gone dead white, his eyes were bulging out of their sockets, and his hands were shaking so badly that the papers he was holding - his mission assignment - were rustling loudly. "...The hell?" Axel whispered - there had been plenty of missions Demyx had been afraid to go on just from reading the paperwork, but he couldn't remember a single one he'd reacted that badly to. "What's wrong?"

Demyx's mouth worked helplessly, but it was a full minute before he was able to form words. "...How _dare_ they," he whispered finally, and as if a spell had been broken, his face contorted with rage - an expression Axel had never seen from him before. The mission papers were quickly crumpled in his fists, and water dribbled out from between his fingers. Then, as Axel, Roxas, and the entire Organization watched in horror, he started tearing the papers to shreds. The sodden paper tore without the slightest sound, and the silence lent an unreal, dreamlike quality to the whole scene. Even when he stormed out of the room, leaving the shredded bits of paper scattered across the floor and table, the rest of them were frozen, as though entranced.

"What the _hell_ was that?" Axel was startled by the sound of his own voice. "Was - that really Demyx?" Everyone else seemed to snap out of it, and the kitchen was suddenly abuzz with voices full of shock and consternation, and the occasional shouted order. Only Axel remained frozen in place, still staring at the shreds of wet paper on the floor.

* * *

Roxas had just about fallen out of his chair when the order for Demyx's arrest was given. He was still reeling from the idea that the gentle, peaceful musician could possibly be driven to such a rage as to simply shred his mission paperwork in front of the entire Organization and walk out heedless of the consequences - maybe the arrest was for his own good. Maybe he'd lost his mind. But -no - before he'd opened that envelope, everything had been fine - it must have been the mission -

He sprang out of his chair, leaving Axel sitting like a lump. He knew Demyx better than anyone else who was actually participating in the search; he knew he wasn't totally without guile. And if Axel had taken root, as he seemed to have, that made it his job to find Demyx before anyone else could.

Zexion had lost his scent trail within a few yards of the kitchen door - he'd obviously made a portal to somewhere else, probably when it sank in how much trouble he was in. While the rest of the Organization went to either Demyx's own room or the Hall of Empty Melodies, the two most obvious places to search, Roxas portaled down to the dungeons. It didn't take him too long to figure out he'd picked right the first time.

"Rox?! How did you -"

"Axel wouldn't get off his ass and no one else realizes you're bright enough to run anywhere but your own room and the Hall. I picked the least obvious place I could think of." Too much light would give them away, but Roxas brightened the place just enough to see Demyx crouching in a dark corner. "What the hell set you off like that?"

Demyx's voice was shaky with fear now. "The mission. I - I couldn't do it. I couldn't even stand the thought of someone else doing it. I'm in trouble, aren't I?"

Roxas couldn't help but give him the straightest answer possible. "I'm supposed to be arresting you. If you get caught here, you're gonna stay here." There was an audible moan of terror. "What was so bad about the mission that you didn't even want someone else to do it?"

Demyx hesitated a long time before answering. "I was supposed to steal Saraswati's veena."

The response must have made all kinds of sense to Demyx, but Roxas couldn't make heads or tails of it. "All right...who is Saraswati and what is a veena?"

"Saraswati is the goddess of music - you've seen the statue of her in my room," Demyx replied with some heat. "And the veena is her sacred instrument. I'll be _damned_ if I'm gonna steal it - or let anyone else try." He wasn't using that as a figure of speech.

"Oh," was all Roxas could say. The concepts of sanctity and sacrilege were ill-formed in his mind, vague concepts he'd heard about somewhere that had meaning for people with hearts, but to Demyx, who remembered quite clearly what it was like to have a heart, those concepts must have rung as true to him as emotions did. He couldn't waste too much time thinking about it - "You'd better get out of here. Everyone, by which I mean everyone, is looking for you right now."

Demyx sighed miserably. "Where am I gonna go?" he whispered helplessly. "What am I gonna do? I'm dead meat!"

"Demyx. Pick a world. Open a portal to it. Go through the portal. Close it behind you. It's that simple."

Demyx shook his head, too distressed to think. "Where?"

"Anywhere that isn't here. Somewhere they're not likely to find you. Just get out of here."

Demyx shook his head again. "Fuck, Rox, I can't think..."

"Then go somewhere where you can think." Roxas was getting a little frustrated, and desperate. "Hurry, before someone else comes down here. Zexion might have caught your scent any time."

"Right...right..." Demyx swallowed hard, as if he was preparing to do something that terrified him. "Thanks." Almost with one motion, he opened a dark portal and leapt through it. It vanished without a trace as soon as he was gone.

Just then, the large main door to the dungeons opened. "- not mistaken. The scent is stronger here than - Thirteen? What are you doing here?"

Roxas thought fast, hoping Zexion couldn't really read minds like some people said. "I guessed he was going down here - I had him cornered, I was trying to talk him into giving himself up, but he got away through a portal - to a different world, I guess..."

* * *

Demyx hadn't really been thinking straight when he made the portal, and had ended up in a world he'd never seen before - it looked like a postapocalyptic type, blasted and charred, though thankfully there didn't seem to be any demons or zombies running around. He shook his head in dismay - dammit, idiot that he was, he'd blown it again.

Feeling utterly helpless and alone, he sat down on a rock and cried until his eyes burned. Why, why had he made such a scene out of refusing the mission? He'd known even while he was destroying the papers that he was going to be in so damn much trouble - why had he run away and not just taken what was coming to him? It would have been so much easier...he didn't have the strength or the courage or the intelligence for the life of a fugitive...now he was going to die on the run, it seemed...

What he needed, besides a chance to undo time, was the help of someone much stronger and braver and smarter than himself. Or to become much stronger and braver and smarter than he currently was, and very quickly.

Or just go to some world where he could hide forever. The Land of Dragons was big enough...

The Land of Dragons. He should have thought of that first. _I really do need an intelligence upgrade,_ he thought as he opened another portal.

Now he found himself on all fours, in snow halfway up to his elbows, and - very calm. Shockingly calm, in fact. His mind quickly sifted through an ocean of information that he hadn't had access to on the other side of the portal. He smiled, but it wasn't a smile his friends would necessarily recognize.

He shook his head faintly - this human form no longer seemed entirely natural to him, small and weak and prone to freezing as it was; his true form was much better suited to this place. The transformation was the work of a moment, and then a sea-blue dragon glided down from the mountains, away from the snow and ice.

Yes. Now he could think clearly, and more than clearly. Now he had the intelligence and knowledge - not to mention the powers - of a _lung_ at his command. Now he was the _Lung Qin Xiang_ - the Imperial Dragon Xiang - and he felt like there was nothing he couldn't do. Tearing out this large tree he was curling around would be the work of a moment. Knocking a few fresh dents into the mountainside would be refreshing exercise. Conjuring storms that would devastate the countryside would be an interesting way to spend an afternoon. As long as he remained in the Land of Dragons, he was virtually invincible.

With the knowledge of his own invincibility came the knowledge that he could not remain in the Land of Dragons indefinitely, not if he wanted to square with his would-be jailors and ensure the mission against his goddess never took place. But as soon as he left the Land of Dragons, he would lose all his knowledge and strength and be back to his human self - a pathetic little creature, devoid of strength, devoid of courage, devoid of intelligence, devoid of even his hearing. Any confrontation that took place, he would have to involve himself in as a dragon as opposed to a human, else he would be woefully overpowered. And he could not wait for the Organization to find him here - if there was going to be a confrontation, he had to bring the fight to them. But that was impossible, because outside the Land of Dragons, he was as weak and worthless a creature as they came.

It was fortunate that Lung Qin Xiang, unlike Demyx, possessed an in-depth knowledge of magical artifacts of the Land of Dragons, and the locations of those that weren't simply lost to history. It required only a few minutes of thought to come up with a solution, and then Lung Qin Xiang, otherwise known as Demyx, flew off towards a particular Shaolin temple, enjoying the sensation of the breeze on his scales as he went.

For a mere human, the journey would have taken days at best. For a dragon, it was a brief trip, no more than an hour or two, and quite pleasant, with the sun on his scales and the odd cloud to toy with en route. No question whether he'd been seen or not - he'd watched the little ant-sized humans below stop in their tracks to stare at him as he passed overhead, and it amused him faintly. Edmy Ghatori had spent his short life largely unseen even by those who walked within three feet of him every day. As the people on the ground far below shouted and screamed and dragged small children and elderly relatives out of their houses for one glimpse of him as he passed miles overhead, Lung Qin Xiang laughed, with a sound like thunder.

How wonderful, to live as a dragon instead of a Nobody.

When he landed at the temple, even the most aged and infirm of the monks had hobbled out, or been carried out by acolytes, just to see him. The abbot, an elderly man whose straight back and strong arms belied his age, bowed deeply and reverentially. "Exalted dragon, our humble monastery is forever honored merely by your choosing to linger here a few moments. If there is some service we can perform for you, no matter how slight, speak but a word and it shall be done."

Lung Qin Xiang shifted back into his human form - a necessity, if he wanted to make himself understood. Some of the acolytes looked startled at his blatantly foreign appearance, but the older monks were wise enough to recognize the dragon within those blue eyes. He bowed respectfully, but not too deeply. "My name is Lung Qin Xiang. I'm here for the Jade Dragon Ring."

The ring must have been one of the temple's most treasured possessions. The speed with which the monks went to fetch it for him anyway might have been a little heartwarming. Unfortunately, Lung Qin Xiang had no more of a heart than his human alter ego, though he missed it far less. How necessary _was_ a heart to someone with all the power and wisdom of a _lung_ at his command?

He decided once again that Demyx, as he had been, was a pretty useless creature.

Well, there were a few positive qualities about the old Demyx, mostly relating to music, he admitted to himself as he slid the ring on - the delicate circle of carved jade was too small for any fingers of his right hand, but on his left, which was still slightly withered from a cobra's bite, it was a perfect fit on his middle finger. The bulk of it, however - the fear, the weakness, the muddle-headedness - those, he could happily do without.

Bowing his thanks to the monks, he returned to his true form, then sped off towards the south, which was in the grip of a drought. After killing an hour or two amusing himself by making it rain enough to make a difference, he found himself a private place to land, change forms, and create a portal back to the World that Never Was. The portal would put him directly in front of the castle, in more than plain sight, but that was exactly what he wanted.

They were expecting Demyx. They were about to get Lung Qin Xiang.

* * *

"I told you, he's out of their reach," Roxas kept protesting. "He took off for some other world - not even I know where, and I was watching him."

Axel shook his head, wishing there was something - anything - he could do to relieve this heavy, dead feeling in his chest. "Where to, Rox? Where'd he go? Port Royal? The Nexus? At least the Superior's not likely to kill him if he gets caught. Some worlds..." He sighed despondently. "I dunno, Rox. I dunno if we're ever gonna see him again."

"Come on, Ax. Demyx isn't completely helpless."

"Demyx is gonna be running scared for weeks," Axel snapped. "And what's he gonna be running into in the meantime? Dragons? Demons? Lynch mobs?"

Roxas glared at him. "You're talking about a guy who's been disemboweled, beaten to a pulp, shot in the back, bitten by a cobra, stared down the biggest storm in history, fractured his skull in a car accident, tried to hang himself once, and I'm probably forgetting all kinds of things he's lived through and shouldn't have. With a track record like that, I think he'll be okay."

"He's back."

Relief mingled with bleak dismay and crawled down Axel's spine. "I guess that means he hasn't gotten himself killed yet," he muttered, more to himself than to either Roxas or Foriuxocol.

Roxas sighed, his distress equally obvious. "There's so few of us already; just flipping out at a mission he couldn't handle - there's not enough of us that they can afford to put us down one over that..."

"Brilliant euphemism there, Rox," Axel mumbled. He turned to Fori, waiting for some excuse to take the little demon's head off. "What are you doing still here?" he asked with menacing slowness.

"You are supposed to be coming with me," Fori replied just as slowly. "Your job is to talk him into giving himself up before anyone has to use force, if I understood the Superior right."

Axel and Roxas just stared hopelessly at each other - the odds that force would be needed where Demyx was concerned were nil, unless they'd pushed Demyx into a corner. Even then, he'd probably surrender without a fight. _Please, don't let this arrest be someone's opportunity to beat the snot out of him..._ Axel thought.

But if he just talked him into giving up, no one would have an excuse. He was probably Demyx's best hope for safety. He sighed heavily. "All right...where are we going?" Fori opened a portal, and both of them went through, to find Xaldin and Saix waiting for them in a side room overlooking the street outside the castle. Axel swallowed hard when he noticed both of them had their weapons out. _But he's not going to fight,_ he wanted to scream. _He's Demyx. He won't fight._ But that had to be why Fori was coming along, wasn't it? Because the smallest Organization member had the power to stop bleeding from any wound that wasn't instantly fatal - and the higher-ups were expecting blood?

Xaldin opened a portal without a word and all four of them went through, Axel dragging his feet the whole way. Demyx was just standing there staring off into space, leaning on his sitar, not making any effort to hide or flee or anything - just standing there smirking, like he'd been waiting for them. "Hey - you guys are lookin' lively," he said in a disturbingly casual tone. His gaze turned towards them, and Axel noticed the strange look in his eyes - a light and depth, like the sun from underwater.

_Something is very, very wrong here._

Axel swallowed hard, or tried to, but his mouth was completely dry. He'd been expecting to find Demyx distraught and helpless, and to console him as much as convince him to give up. Reassurances of safety and promises to stick with him no matter what dried up and blew away, leaving him speechless - this Demyx didn't need any of that. "Demyx..." he started, then stopped. "Demyx, what are you doing?"

"Trying to get someone to take me seriously. Took a while before I hit on something I figured would work." Demyx picked up his sitar and sauntered towards them quite casually. "So...what's up with the party? You weren't expecting to arrest me or anything, were you?" _I'd like to see you try,_ he might as well have said.

"Um, yes...that kind of was...the..." The rest of them just looked utterly bewildered; it was Axel's job to talk, but he couldn't find a thing to say. "Yeah."

Demyx smirked, then strolled right up to him. "And what are you doing here, big brother? They drag you into this, or did you choose to come?"

He swallowed hard again. "Well...I was...supposed to be talking you into giving yourself up..."

Demyx nodded slowly, as if that was exactly what he'd been expecting. "Oh. Thought so." He gestured widely. "Well, I'm right here in the middle of you - go ahead, arrest me."

Axel took a step back, nearly backing over Fori. "Nine, what in Kingdom Hearts's name are you playing at?!" Saix snarled - it seemed Axel wasn't the only one who was deeply disturbed by this behavior.

"Playing at?" Demyx smiled broadly. "Oh, you mean this is a game to you? Refresh my memory, what's the object?"

Xaldin leveled a spear at him. "Enough of this - Nine, you're under arrest for gross insubordination."

Demyx raised an eyebrow, the confident smirk never leaving his face. "Oh? I don't feel arrested...how can you tell?"

"Nine -" Saix grabbed Demyx by the wrist. None of the others were entirely sure what happened next, but it ended with Saix lying on the ground with a broken wrist and a bleeding nose, and his claymore in Demyx's hands. One quick swing at a concrete wall, and the blade snapped in half like a twig. The rest of them just stared while Demyx systematically reduced the giant claymore to splinters - the claymore he should barely have been able to pick up in the first place. Axel knew he was shaking like a leaf, but he didn't care.

Even Xaldin looked awed. "Nine, how in Kingdom Hearts' name..."

Demyx just looked at the spear in his hand. "You might want to put that away before someone gets hurt." His tone of voice clearly suggested the odds were in favor of Xaldin being the one to get hurt. It spoke volumes for the Whirlwind Lancer's nerve that the spearpoint barely quivered. Demyx's eyes suddenly narrowed, and he whirled around, lashing at the seemingly empty air with elbows and fists. A moment later, he was holding a very limp Zexion up by the hood. "I thought he was smarter than that," he complained. "Turning invisible and trying to sneak up on me...a five-year-old could have thought that one up." He hauled the unconscious Schemer over to Fori. "Here, keep an eye on him, will you?"

Fori lay Zexion on the ground, his eyes never leaving Demyx's face. "Is this freaking you out as bad as it's freaking me out?" he whispered to Axel.

"Worse, if anything," Axel whispered back.

Demyx raised an eyebrow, and Axel suddenly realized that not only was he not wearing hearing aids, their absence didn't seem to be making much of a difference. "Worse, Ax? I thought you were more used to this than most of them."

"I gotta say..." Axel swallowed hard. "I like the real Demyx better."

Demyx shrugged emphatically. "The _real_ Demyx? I'm as real as any of us, I think...and the fully human Demyx, if that's who you're thinking of, is too much of a wuss. Can't stand up for himself to save his life. I had to grow some sort of a spine if I wanted to accomplish anything besides putting my ass in a sling."

"...Well, not being fully human anymore would explain a lot..." Fori muttered. "So what's the rest?"

Axel swallowed again and shook his head. "I don't think he's _any_ human anymore. I think he's just all dragon."

"...Are you shitting me?"

"Afraid not," Demyx said quite cheerily. "See, Axel knows what he's talking about. You guys might wanna go back inside. You've got casualties to take care of, after all." He turned around and walked away, waving as he left. "Later!"

Axel kept a close eye on Xaldin, sure he was going to launch at least one spear at the retreating figure. But he never moved; the spearpoint eventually began to sag, and once Demyx had vanished from sight, the spear disappeared.

* * *

"That went so, so wrong," Axel whispered bleakly, sinking into a chair.

Roxas sat down beside him, icy knots of fear sliding down his spine. "What happened? They didn't hurt him, did they?"

Axel shook his head slowly, with a shellshocked expression. "Other way around."

"..." Roxas just stared. "Do you mean what I think you mean?"

Axel covered his face with his hands; his bright green eyes glowed slightly from between his fingers. "Rox, do you think Saix broke his own arm?"

"..." Well, it seemed easier to believe than the idea that Demyx had broken it for him. "You're kidding me. How could Demyx break Saix's arm? It would have to be by accident or something."

"Here's a hint. He tore the claymore out of his hands, by physical force. I don't know if this was before or after giving him a bloody nose. They were moving pretty damn fast; it was hard to tell. And afterwards I didn't think to ask because we were all too busy watching Demyx smash the claymore to bits."

"...You're kidding me," was all Roxas could say. "He can barely lift that thing - are you sure that was Demyx?"

"Looked the same, sounded the same...granted, he could hear, but..." Axel shook his head. "No. That wasn't Demyx. That was Lung Qin Xiang."

"...Who, exactly, is Lung Qin Xiang?"

Axel dropped his hands and looked dully at Roxas. "You've been to the Land of Dragons with Demyx before. You know what happens to him there." Roxas nodded. "Lung Qin Xiang is the name he sometimes uses while he's there."

Roxas looked at him carefully. "So...what are you saying, exactly?"

"We have a Chinese dragon on our doorstep. And he answers to Demyx."

It took a while for that to work its way through. When it finally did, Roxas shook his head numbly. "That's impossible. He's only a dragon in the Land of Dragons. Same way as you can only be a mermaid in Atlantica. It's part of the world's magic."

Axel groaned. "I know it's impossible. But it's happened."

"But...how?"

"I don't know!" Axel snapped. Then he sighed. "But...he scares me. He's had a complete personality overhaul. And the worst part is, he thinks it's for the better. That smile he's got going...fuck, I'm afraid I'll see it in my nightmares." He shuddered violently.

Roxas was starting to wonder if one or the other of them wasn't actually having a nightmare, until Zexion walked in, leaning heavily on Lexaeus. His face was mottled with dark bruises, and he looked like he was having to fight to stay conscious. **Thirteen, Nine left a message saying he wants to speak with you**, he signed - apparently it was too painful for him to talk.

Axel and Roxas just looked at each other. "Don't go, Rox," Axel said. "For your own sanity, if nothing else."

Roxas shook his head, feeling torn. "Ax, I - I have to. Maybe he'll be willing to talk sense with someone who's not trying to arrest him. At least I have to try..."

Axel sighed heavily. "All right...you'd better come back, though."

"Even if he is a dragon, I don't think he's gonna kill me...he hasn't lost his mind that completely yet, has he?"

"Rox..." Axel said plaintively.

"I'll be fine. Don't worry so much." Trying to convince himself that was true, Roxas opened a portal to the front of the castle. He didn't see Demyx, but he did see a row of Chinese characters written on the steps. "Demyx? Are you -"

"There you are. I was hoping they'd let you come." Roxas suddenly felt a hand on his shoulder, gently propelling him away from the castle - Demyx had come up right behind him without him noticing. "Come on."

"Where, exactly, are we going?" Roxas asked doubtfully.

"I kind of set up shop in one of the abandoned warehouses a block or so away. It's not very far." Demyx's tone was entirely casual, as if he was talking about which ice cream shop they were going to, and Roxas wondered what was going on behind those strangely-lit eyes.

"Why can't we just stand out in front of the castle like you did last time?" he asked, wondering about Demyx's motive.

"Because the other Organization members are almost guaranteed to try something while I'm distracted." Demyx turned and pointed up at a balcony Roxas could barely see. "I'm almost tempted to fly up there and just rip off the balcony Luxord is standing on. It's not like he's really having much of an effect - I mean, do I look like I've been frozen in time?"

Roxas just stared upwards - he couldn't even see anyone on the balcony Demyx was pointing out. And he was completely resisting Luxord's elemental attacks? "O...kay."

"It's kind of funny, actually," Demyx said conversationally. "Everyone's so used to me being the low man on the totem pole. They're not used to me having the balls to fight back and stand up for myself."

"Well, it's one thing to stand up for yourself..."

Demyx looked at him sideways. "And what's another thing? How's the sentence end? All I've done so far is talk, and respond appropriately to direct physical threats - well, besides insubordination and resisting arrest in the first place."

Roxas swallowed hard, trying to ignore the vague feeling of impending doom. "So...uh...was there anything in particular you wanted to talk to me about?"

Demyx shook his head and chuckled as he opened the door to the warehouse in question. "No, not really. I just wanted a hostage I _could_ carry on an intelligent conversation with - it gets lonely in there. Will that work for your 'another thing'?"

The feeling of impending doom was no longer so vague.

* * *

Axel was too hoarse by now to even continue screaming, as the whip slashed across his back over and over again, carving new trails of agony with every stroke. He'd never been in so much pain in his existence - the agony was overpowering his ability to move, to think, even to breathe - and every time he was sure it couldn't get any worse, it did. The only thing left in his mind was a desperate wish for the torment to end soon - whether it was this particular torment, or all torments forever, didn't matter anymore.

Then, so abruptly he wasn't aware of it at first, the beating stopped, leaving him to catch his breath - well, try to - as blood streamed down his tattered back. He forced himself to look up at the sky, and the serpentine form of a dragon raced across the moon - the dragon, Demyx, his salvation...then he glanced back down and realized the courtyard was flooding...

Suddenly, his head was shoved underwater and held there.

He tried to fight, to free himself - no use; all he did was hurt himself fighting the chains on his wrists and around his neck. Bubbles escaped from his nose and mouth as he started to panic - precious air, lost. His lungs burned from lack of oxygen, the world was starting to go dark, he was going to drown, he was going to die - and just as suddenly, he was grabbed by the hair and jerked back out of the water, coughing and retching. He twisted his neck, ignoring the hair that was being torn out by the roots and the iron collar that was biting into his throat, desperate for a look at his tormentor.

Demyx smirked at him.

_BAM!_

"Holy shit, dude. That must have been a hell of a nightmare."

Axel looked around wildly - he was lying on the floor, next to a tipped-over chair. The whip scars on his back were throbbing painfully, and so was his head; he must have hit it on something. "...The hell..."

"I dunno either, but it was bad enough to make you knock your chair over in your sleep." Xigbar was looking at him doubtfully.

Axel sighed heavily as he stood up and righted the chair. "Yeah...it was...pretty bad..." _If you count dreams about being tortured by one of your best friends as bad... "_Has Roxas come back yet?"

Xigbar shook his head gravely as he turned back to face the window. "No. And we got another message from Demyx - asking for enough food for two for a few days, some blankets, and the Lord of the Rings books." Axel gulped - the Lord of the Rings was what Roxas was currently reading. "Kind of gives us the impression Roxas is gonna be staying with him for a bit."

"How could he?" Axel whispered hopelessly. "Even as a dragon?"

Xigbar froze, then half-turned towards him. "...Dragon? Did I hear you right?"

Axel nodded miserably. "I dunno how he managed it, but he is here, right now, in dragon form - well, maybe not in dragon form, but he is a dragon, even when he looks human. He's only supposed to be like that in the Land of Dragons - he shouldn't be here like this, it's impossible..."

The long string of expletives that Xigbar came up with would have shocked a hardened pirate. While Axel was staring in awe and trying to commit it all to memory, he finished off with "I canceled the wrong fuckin' mission!"

"...The hell?"

"Dammit, I should have canceled his mission, not yours!" While Xigbar started working on another long string of equally creative curses, Axel wondered what mission he was supposed to have been sent on, and what mission Demyx had been willing to raise hell to avoid being sent on.

Eventually, he forced himself to interrupt the educational diatribe. "Not that this isn't fun to listen to, but what missions are you talking about?"

Xigbar had to take a few deep breaths before he could say anything printable. "Hell, I don't know if it's too late or not; I guess we gotta at least try..." He walked through the wall and came back a few moments later with an envelope that looked just like the ones mission assignments had been delivered in that morning - was it just that morning? It seemed so long ago... "It got canceled at the last minute for reasons I really don't feel like explaining right now, but as of right now, it's back on." He handed Axel the envelope. "Before you ask, I have no idea what the Jade Dragon Ring actually does, except it's supposed to have some sort of power over dragons. And right now, I think we need all the help we can get."

Axel swallowed hard as he read over the mission papers, and not from their contents - his mind was somewhere else altogether. Demyx would never hurt Roxas, he knew that as well as he knew their names, but Demyx would never have kidnapped Roxas in the first place. And Lung Qin Xiang...well, he liked to think that Lung Qin Xiang wouldn't hurt Roxas any more than Demyx would. He'd asked for food and blankets for two, after all, and the books Roxas had been reading; evidently there was some concern for his physical and psychological well-being. But he'd been so willing to hurt Saix and Zexion, and probably Xaldin if he'd moved the wrong way at the wrong time...and Demyx was never willing to hurt _anyone_, even in self-defense...

He sighed heavily and teleported to the Land of Dragons. Hopefully this ring would give the wearer some power to control dragons, or neutralize their magic, or something...something they could use to disable Demyx - Lung Qin Xiang - without hurting him...why, for the love of Kingdom Hearts, had he chosen Roxas as a hostage? Sure, having the Keyblade wielder in his power was one hell of a bargaining chip, but for Roxas...if Roxas seemed to be in any danger, the Superior would be that much faster to consider lethal force...

_If you hurt Roxas...I dunno what I'd do._

Axel had watched more than enough martial arts films to associate Shaolin temples with kung fu masters. He valued his life too much to try just barging in the front door, flames or no flames. Fortunately, he had a secondary method of getting entry, or at least information..._oh, Kingdom Hearts, that's not where Demyx got the idea from, is it?_

All he had to do was find the outhouse and hide somewhere along the route between it and the main temple. Even kung fu masters had to answer the call of nature, and young acolytes probably even more so. When a likely prospect came along unaccompanied - a bald-headed boy of about seven or eight - ambushing him on the way back to the temple was the easiest part of the job. "Don't scream and you won't get hurt," he said in a low voice, grabbing the boy by the shoulders.

Dark eyes stared up at him, wide with fright. "What do you want?" the boy asked in a trembling voice.

"I'm looking for the Jade Dragon Ring." No use menacing the kid any more than necessary; making him panic and either scream or try to escape was about the worst thing he could do, and besides, it just wasn't nice...then again, he had taken him hostage.

The little acolyte shook his head furiously. "It's not here anymore - the Lung Qin Xiang came just this morning and claimed it - I saw him - the abbot had it brought to him - and he left wearing it -"

Axel blinked. His entire body suddenly felt cold. "Say that name again..." he said slowly. "_Who_ has the ring?"

"Lung Qin Xiang," the boy gasped, as if Axel was strangling him.

For a few long moments, Axel was too stunned to move. Then, remembering where he was and what he was doing, he released the acolyte. "Get out of here," he hissed, and the boy ran off like he was on fire. Axel himself stumbled through a portal back to the room he'd left barely an hour earlier and collapsed into the nearest chair, feeling sick.

"That was quick, dude," Xigbar said in a suspicious voice. Axel didn't even turn around and look at him.

"Before you ask," he began very slowly and shakily, "I do not have the ring. It was not at the temple. However, I did manage to find out where it is, who has it, and I think I can guess what it does. It allows dragons to stay dragons even on different worlds - so they don't need to be within the Land of Dragons. As long as their human aspect is wearing the Jade Dragon Ring, they're still dragons, whatever world they're on."

He turned around in time to see the Freeshooter nod slowly and deliberately. "So...Demyx has the ring?"

"That's what they told me at the temple. They gave me the name he uses in the Land of Dragons and said 'this guy has the ring'."

The streams of profanity Xigbar had come up with on his first two attempts were nothing compared to this one.

* * *

Lung Qin Xiang carefully examined the goods waiting on the steps. Blankets, five of them, and good ones that would have an effect against the cold nights - food, mostly canned food (well, he had asked for stuff that would keep) with a loaf of bread, some uncooked pasta, and a surprise package of cookies - and of course, the books Roxas had requested. His super-keen senses were wary for any sign of a trap waiting to be sprung, and he was a little surprised not to find one. That only made him warier.

He didn't let his guard down for an instant as he made his way back to the warehouse - when he had his arms full would be the perfect time to ambush him. It seemed ridiculous that there wouldn't be one. It wasn't like they could really do much to him if they tried, but he expected them to at least try. By the time he got back to the warehouse, absolutely nothing had happened.

_This is nuts,_ he thought. _Either they had something more subtle in mind, or they're still not taking me seriously. I'd hoped taking a hostage would encourage them to at least do that much..._ "Hey, Roxas, how are you holding up?"

"I'm bored, hungry, and not very comfortable...other than that, this is an improvement on a lot of missions I've been on." Roxas shifted uncomfortably in his chair - chairs were few and far between in this building, at least ones fit to sit on at all.

"Well, they listened to my last note, so I think I can fix all three of those, at least temporarily." Lung Qin Xiang set his armload down, then handed Roxas a blanket. "Here; sit on it if you don't need it to keep warm just yet." He also handed over the books, then went to set up the little electric range he'd found earlier. He didn't have a can opener for the can of chicken soup he was preparing to heat up, but he'd found a knife that would work just as well, in about the same place he'd found the kettle. Amazing what scrounging opportunities there were in the World that Never Was, and none of them had ever realized. Except maybe Vexen.

"I bet Axel's freaking out," Roxas murmured.

"Knowing him? Probably." That would have been an overwhelming concern, back when he still thought of himself as Demyx. One benefit of being Lung Qin Xiang was being able to keep that in perspective. "But I don't expect him to do anything stupid or desperate, mostly because of that." He poured the soup into the kettle and turned the range on. "He'll be reluctant to put either of us in danger - if he learns a little tact, he could be my best advocate."

Roxas looked at him cautiously as he folded the blanket into a suitable cushion. "Do you have any idea how disturbing it is when you talk like that? So...indifferent to your best friends?"

Lung Qin Xiang chuckled. "I've been in a very _disturbing_ mood since this morning."

"That's not what I'm talking about. This just seems so...not like you."

Lung Qin Xiang sighed as he waited for the soup to heat up. "And what is like me, then? Lying down and being walked over? Being quiet and meek all the time like a good little boy? Committing sacrilege on demand just because I don't have the balls to protest? Or was I supposed to make one token protest, then wimp out and get trampled on then, and have the best case scenario be someone else gets sent out to insult my goddess while I sit and rot in the dungeon? Before you ask, yes, I'm perfectly aware that I might end up in the dungeon anyway." He shrugged expressively. "And I'm not afraid of that, at least not right now. I just wanted someone to take me seriously first. For that, I had to improvise."

"You're not acting like yourself at all. It's frightening."

Lung Qin Xiang ground his teeth. "Roxas, if I had acted like myself, I would be rotting in the dungeon right now, and my immortal soul - all the more necessary an accessory without a heart to go with it - would be in dire jeopardy for not trying to do more to prevent an act of sacrilege. I know that just tearing up the mission papers would do nothing by itself to stop someone else from being sent on that mission. I very much needed to act _not_ like myself." He hadn't found any ladles or soup bowls, so he carefully poured soup into an empty coffee cup and handed it to Roxas. "Here. Eat." He himself ate out of the kettle, for lack of another coffee cup, and silence reigned temporarily.

"How long do you think this is going to go on?" Roxas asked when he was done.

"No more than a few days, I hope...they sent cookies; would you like one?" Lung Qin Xiang opened the package of cookies...and had to struggle not to just stop dead.

_There's the trap._

Well, Demyx was never able to resist cookies, but Lung Qin Xiang could. He calmly handed one to Roxas and resealed the package, explaining that he wasn't hungry right now and he'd have one later.

Roxas shook his head as he ate the cookie. "You're definitely not acting like yourself," he muttered.

"Roxas, when I think of all the trouble I might have avoided in the past just by not acting like myself..." He didn't finish the sentence, and Roxas didn't press him to.

"What's the harm in just eating a cookie, though?" Roxas said, fishing for the book that had a bookmark in it.

Lung Qin Xiang shrugged and lied through his teeth. "None, really. I just don't want one right now." Demyx would never have done that to one of his friends, and a brief pang, almost like a physical pain, stabbed through his chest.

But as Roxas started to yawn and let the book fall out of his hands and eventually passed out in his chair, Lung Qin Xiang watched and considered it all part of an elaborate, high-stakes game of chess. He'd seen their move before it was made and thwarted it, and now it was his turn to make a move. First, he thought they might like to know how their drugged cookies worked out.

* * *

Axel had learned a stunning number of new swear words in the past few hours, just from being in the same room as Xigbar. He wasn't making very much use of them, however; he was too busy worrying about Demyx and Roxas, and whether they were all right, and how long they would stay that way. This was quickly shaping up to be one of the worst nights of his life.

"Heard anything else?" he couldn't stop himself from asking for the second time in fifteen minutes.

Xemnas seemed to have left Xigbar in charge of the bulk of the operation; by rights, he should have been at least as on edge from stress as Axel was, and willing to shoot holes in anything that moved. Instead...he seemed to be in a pretty good mood. "Nothing yet," he said in a voice that seemed almost cheery.

That light tone made Axel suspicious. "Do you know something I don't?"

"There's a hole with no bottom, dude..."

Axel sighed. "You know, as soon as Roxas comes back, I can get all the casual insults I want and then some..."

Xigbar waved a hand. "Get your panties out of a bunch, dude. Trust me, it's a good thing that we're not hearing anything right now. Give it another half an hour or so, just to be sure, and this should be over with by..." When it was supposed to be over by was suddenly drowned out by a loud banging, crashing, grinding sound that nearly made Axel levitate. "The fuck was that?!"

Axel was the first to reach one of the front-facing windows, and what he saw when he looked out almost made him wet his pants. "Oh my God," he choked.

"...Should I even ask? Forget it, guess I better...what's out there?"

Axel had to swallow hard a few times to get any words out at all. "...A very large, very angry-looking Chinese dragon shoving an 18-wheeler up against the front doors."

"...Dude. You're shitting me." Axel just gestured mutely at the window. Outside, having positioned the truck to his satisfaction, Demyx - Lung Qin Xiang, in his dragon form - had picked up an abandoned police car and was now setting it on top of the truck. Xigbar stared over Axel's shoulder. "...Damn..." he whispered.

The dragon hovered over the police car, then a cloud of fog rolled in, and suddenly Demyx was standing on the top of the truck. He looked at them - directly at them - and waved, then opened the police car door, pulled out a bullhorn, and climbed up onto the roof. "Hey, you guys might want to tell Zexion or Xanrivash or whoever was responsible for them that Roxas really liked the cookies," he said, the bullhorn amplifying his voice until it could probably be heard throughout half the castle.

Axel was baffled, but Xigbar looked sick. "You know, dude...Demyx was a great kid, but this dragon is a real son of a bitch."

Axel was close to asking what he was talking about, but then it hit him - who did Demyx think could have sent the cookies in question? Either Zexion or Xanrivash. Zexion liked to bake every so often; everyone knew that. Did Xanrivash? Not to Axel's knowledge; besides, her element was poison - who would eat...

"Check your blood sugar lately?"

Axel blinked. All of a sudden, he was lying flat on the floor, staring up at the ceiling, and at Xigbar, who was now standing on the ceiling. "...After dinner..." Suddenly, he remembered the last thought he'd had before passing out - something involving Roxas and poisoned cookies - and broke out in a cold sweat. "Those cookies he was talking about...what was in them?" he gasped.

Xigbar sighed. "Rohypnol. It's a potent knockout drug. Suffice to say, they weren't meant for Roxas's consumption."

Axel almost fainted with relief as the cold sweat started to evaporate off his clothing. "Oh, thank Kingdom Hearts...I was expecting cyanide..."

Xigbar shook his head gravely. "You don't get it, dude...a package of drugged cookies is a plenty big enough dose to leave someone his size in a coma, or worse." Axel suddenly felt sick. "I guess he wouldn't have any way of knowing it, and I'm not sure he'd care if he did know, but he just made himself an even bigger target - lethal force is now an option. The Superior's instructions were 'lethal force is not to be used even in self-defense _provided the Keyblade wielder is unharmed'_."

Axel shook his head fiercely. "No. He wouldn't. Not even by accident. Besides, he has healing magic - I know; I've seen it before..." He sat up and rested his forehead against the window, watching Demyx write something in chalk on the wall.

"Dude. I can't count on the fingers of both hands the number of things he's done very deliberately in the past eighteen hours that he wouldn't, not even by accident. It's gonna be a month before Zex can eat solid food, and that's just for starters. And I don't need to tell you the finishers. It's only pure luck no one's been killed already - well, that I know of." Axel wasn't even aware that he was crying, until Xigbar handed him a tissue. "I'm sorry, dude. This is probably tearing you up like no one's business - and I'm not gonna add anything stupid like 'at least it would if you had a heart'. But that's just the point we've come to - he's lost his mind. He's too dangerous to everyone, especially Roxas."

Axel felt completely hollow inside - how had it come to this so quickly? At breakfast this morning, he and Roxas had been bickering over a Halo game, and Demyx was begging them to talk about anything else...it had only been this morning, even though it seemed a thousand years ago...and now... "No...please..." he whispered hopelessly. "Not Demyx..." _Why Roxas? Why, of everyone in the Organization, did you have to kidnap Roxas? Why not me?_

Xigbar gestured at the man/dragon on the police car, who just then seemed to be reconsidering and erasing part of what he wrote. "Think for a second...can you still call him Demyx?" He rested one hand on Axel's shoulder briefly; his other hand was now holding a gun. "You should go. You're not gonna want to watch." The chalk broke in Demyx's hand as he tried to rewrite whatever he'd just erased.

Axel closed his eyes as Xigbar opened the window. "If I agreed with a single thing you said, I'd tell you to do what you had to..."

"It'll be quick. He won't feel a thing," Xigbar said dully, as if he was trying to throttle any leftover emotions that might interfere.

"He doesn't deserve this..."

"I'd listen to him, if I were you. I only gave him one cookie." Axel's eyes popped open. Demyx was standing there with his arms crossed, glaring at Xigbar. "I swear...does _anyone_ remember I can read lips?"

Axel looked up at Xigbar. Xigbar said something that sounded a lot like "oops", followed by a lot of curse words.

Demyx's voice was thin and strangled with rage. "So Xigbar...you of all people were looking for an excuse to kill me?"

Xigbar held up a hand defensively. "That wasn't exactly the case -"

Demyx's tone was now dead flat. "I'm sure it wasn't." He bowed his head and closed his eyes, and Axel scrambled to his feet and raced in the other direction. Before he'd even made it out of the room, the light from outside was suddenly blocked, and he didn't want to turn around and see the scales. No matter how he tried to escape, however, he couldn't escape the thunderous voice that sent him to his knees - a voice he heard with his mind instead of his ears.

_**Dance, water, dance.**_

Very dimly, as if it was muffled by water, he heard shattering glass. Far louder was the sound of water rushing down the hallway - towards him - dear God, was that crumbling sound - but the water had caught up to him, just as he got back to his feet - he was knocked right back off his feet, into the raging flood - the narrow corridor had suddenly turned into a river, a torrent - he didn't even know which way the surface was - he was being thrown into the walls, the ceiling, the floor, he didn't know what - all he knew was that he couldn't find the surface - he couldn't get air - he was going to drown...

Suddenly, the flood receded, and he was left in the middle of the hallway, completely drenched, coughing and vomiting water, far from where he'd started, but somehow still alive. That in and of itself was a surprise. Once his lungs were full of air and his stomach was just plain empty, he lay back, enjoying the thought of continued survival.

_He didn't kill Xigbar, did he?_

Axel staggered back to his feet, feeling every bump and bruise he'd collected, and made his way back to the room he'd raced out of a few minutes earlier. There wasn't very much of it left - about five feet of floor stretching out away from the doorway, and then empty space. Xigbar was sprawled across the empty space about three feet from where the floor ended; as Axel stared at the devastation, he started to sit up. "Guess I should have expected that..." He clutched at his side. "Shit...feels like he broke something...how are you holdin' out, dude?"

"I'm alive..."

"That'll do for now." Xigbar stood up, still clutching his side, and stumbled over to the actual floor. "That fuckin' _hurts_."

Axel looked out at the city again - Demyx was nowhere in sight, as a human or a dragon. "He could have killed us all in five minutes," he said wonderingly.

"Do me a favor, dude - don't mention that again until we make sure everyone else is alive."

Axel shook his head - if Demyx or Lung Qin Xiang or whoever hadn't killed Xigbar after Xigbar almost killed him in cold blood, there was still enough of the old Demyx in there that he wouldn't kill _anyone_. He just didn't think he could convince anyone else.

* * *

Roxas had never really felt endangered in captivity before. Inconvenienced, sure, not to mention anxious, but not endangered. That was before he woke up wrapped in a blanket on the floor with a pounding headache and an hours-long blank in his memory, and before Demyx stormed in looking like he wanted to kill someone with his bare hands. "Fit to stand up?" he snapped without ceremony. At Roxas's hesitant nod, he started stuffing all their supplies into a bag. "We're getting out of here."

"What?...Why..."

"Because as things now stand, they'll kill me if they get the chance, and in cold blood." The package of cookies - they had to be drugged somehow - was torn open and flung into the street. "I see no reason to sit so close and wait for them."

Roxas gulped, visions of violence and destruction dancing in his head. "...What happened?"

"I went to inform them that their cookies didn't work, and Xigbar tried to shoot me while he thought I wasn't paying attention." Demyx's expression seemed fixed in a snarl that left a few too many sharpened teeth exposed. "Before you ask, I was engaged in writing a fresh message on the wall. Somehow I doubt they'll ever bother to read it."

Roxas just stood there, more than a little bewildered and frightened - the situation had gone from surreal to the point of bizarre to just plain dangerous, and he wasn't sure how much danger he personally was in, or from where. Was Demyx going to lose his temper and attack him? Start hurting him to let the rest of the Organization know how serious he was? Or was he more likely to get hurt in a rescue attempt? Or by an attack meant for Demyx?

How could he be standing here wondering whether Demyx might hurt him? How could any of this be real? Feeling like he was stuck in one long, twisted nightmare, he pinched himself - yes, it still hurt. And Demyx was still giving the electric range a quick wipedown before packing it. And his face was still twisted into that unnatural snarl. And he still had sharp teeth.

The last of their gear was packed, except for a large bottle of ground pepper Demyx still had in his hand. Easily hefting the bulging sack of supplies with the other, Demyx opened a portal and nodded at it. "In."

Too confused and frightened to protest, Roxas went through the portal and waited for Demyx, even though it dimly occurred to him that this would be the right time to make a portal of his own and escape. "Where are we going?" he asked when Demyx joined him.

"Somewhere far away from where we started...and by a very circuitous route." Demyx grabbed a fistful of pepper out of the bottle and scattered it on the ground. "That should give Sniffer McSnoze a fit and a half," he said contemptuously. Then he took off at a run, leading Roxas on a roundabout route through back alleys and twisted sidestreets, until he suddenly stopped dead and opened another portal. Roxas tried hard to keep track of where they were, but soon he lost track of even how many portals they'd gone through and how often Demyx stopped to scatter ground pepper across their tracks. By the time Demyx portaled them into an old office building and said "This is where we'll be staying now", he couldn't even say which direction was north.

"Was - that really necessary?" he asked tenatively.

Demyx smirked. "Maybe not all of it. I wonder how many abbreviated scent trails Zexion is going to find, though. Ones that start at dead ends and end at dead ends. And I wonder how he's going to deal with the pepper. If all goes well, they won't have any way to know for sure whether we're still in the same world."

Roxas suddenly felt very lost._ I should have run when I had the chance..._

* * *

Axel was starting to wish he'd brought a blanket along - not only was the night not all that warm, the truck he was sitting on was made out of very cold metal, and certain portions of his anatomy were having trouble staying the right temperature.

On the plus side, he had something better to do now than sit around fretting and give Xigbar someone to talk to other than himself. There were only four people in the Organization who understood sign language, and two of them were Demyx and Roxas. Since that was the only way Zexion could communicate anymore without writing, it fell to Axel to translate for him. Of course, that left him sitting outside in the cold waiting for Zexion to come back from hunting for Demyx. He wasn't sure who to cheer for - he knew the old Demyx, the peaceful, timid, gentle Demyx, had to be there somewhere, and killing him like Xigbar had wanted to - like a rabid dog that needed to be put down - no. It didn't bear thinking about. Unfortunately, Roxas was still in the hands of the dragon Lung Qin Xiang, who was the polar opposite of what Demyx was and always had been.

Was he the only one who thought of Demyx and Lung Qin Xiang as two separate entities?

He glanced back up at the chalk inscription over the door, just below where the wall had been peeled away. ONLY THOSE LACKING BOTH HEART AND SOUL DARE TO ASK SACR - after that, the words were smudged and illegible; that must have been where Demyx erased what he'd written and was interrupted trying to rewrite it. Axel wondered what he'd written before, and what he'd have written over it if he'd had the chance - what was he trying to say that started with SACR? Sacrifice? Sacrilege? Sacrament? Why did he have to rebel so spectacularly, instead of just deliberately botching the mission if he couldn't take it and letting someone else deal with it? Why had he felt the need to bring his dragon form here, and start raising all hell just to make a point? Why kidnap Roxas just to further it? Why kidnap Roxas, and not someone else? Where the hell was Zexion, anyway? What the hell time was it? How much longer before his ass froze off and stuck to the top of the truck?

Shortly after he started debating setting the truck on fire, a portal opened, and Zexion staggered through alone. Axel didn't know whether that was good or bad. "So, no luck?"

Zexion looked like he was about to topple over sideways. **I found no less than five separate trails, he signed. The first one led from here to a vacant warehouse no more than a block distant - apparently he had used the warehouse as a hideout at least temporarily, but portaled away. The other four trails...all began and ended at dead ends. The last one had a great deal of ground pepper scattered at one end of it.** He rubbed at his nose. **I have no way to know if I even followed the trails in sequence - he may have made dozens of portals and run all over the world. They may be in a completely different world by now.**

"They...so Roxas is still with him?" _Am I ever going to see either of them again?_ he wondered.

**So it seemed. They were together at all times, that I noticed...I'm going inside. I need sleep. You do the explaining.** Zexion opened another portal - the front doors having been so efficiently blocked off by a dragon with an 18-wheeler - and stumbled through it and out of sight, leaving Axel alone - very alone. Eventually, he forced himself to stand up, stretch out, and portal inside.

Everyone was sitting inside waiting for him. Xemnas's glare threatened to bore holes in him, but Saix, standing in the corner with one arm in a sling, looked remarkably subdued, which was completely new for him in Axel's experience. "Eight, is there a particular reason you've abandoned your post?"

_I so didn't want to deal with this shit..._ "Zexion came back...he found one abandoned hideout, several false trails, and a lot of ground pepper. He told me to do the explaining because he was going straight to bed."

"Does he have any reason to believe Nine has left this world, or that Thirteen is still with him?"

Axel would have just loved to collapse just then - it seemed easier than trying to answer Xemnas's questions. "He is...very sure Demyx and Roxas are still together, and...I guess he has no reason _not_ to believe they've left the world, but no reason _to_ believe they've left either. No clues either way. I guess the pepper seriously fucked up his nose."

Xemnas looked as emotionless as ever, to an outside observer, but even the youngest of the neophytes (which would have to be either Roxas or Fori) would recognize that he was seething. "Get some rest," he said abruptly, then turned to Xigbar, who was sitting in a chair looking rather pale. "Arrange search parties to scour the city, as soon as reasonably possible - search parties only; if any of them manage to find Nine or Thirteen, they are to report back here immediately, not attempt a rescue or an arrest. Also, we need to determine immediately what worlds Nine would most likely have fled to."

Axel swallowed hard as he went upstairs - in the direction of his bedroom, but that wasn't exactly his destination. Granted, he was tired as all hell, but rest was the furthest thing from his mind. All he knew was, he had to find them first, before any of the official "search parties" had a chance. If there was any Demyx left inside Lung Qin Xiang, he had to talk to him, and try to convince him into taking off the ring and giving up the dragon's power before anyone got hurt.

Well...before anyone _else_ got hurt.

* * *

Roxas really didn't want to go to sleep - he didn't want to let his guard down, with Demyx acting like he was - but he couldn't fight exhaustion forever, and kept drifting in and out of wakefulness. More than once, he'd suddenly become aware that he was lying on the floor wrapped in blankets while Demyx paced restlessly and stared out the windows, resolved not to let himself go back to sleep, then suddenly became aware that it was an hour later than it had been the last time he suddenly found himself on the floor.

Sometime around 5:00, he decided that it might be easier to stay awake if he got up off the floor. Demyx still showed no signs of either wanting or needing sleep; he kept pacing and staring out the windows, as if he was expecting something. "What are you waiting for?" Roxas asked hesitantly.

"I don't know," Demyx said irritably. "If I knew, I'd be in a better position to do something about it before it happened." He glared out the window for a long minute. "They're looking for us - hopefully they're looking for us in other worlds, but I can't discount the possibility that they're scouring the city for us too."

Roxas wondered - if the pursuit started getting too hot, or if Demyx just thought it was getting too hot, would he run to another world? Would he be forced to go with him? Where would he go? He had no doubts that dragon-Demyx would be able to find someplace where they'd never be found, except by freak chance...

_And to begin with, I was thinking of this as kind of a very odd adventure. I should have run when I had the chance..._ "Demyx, shouldn't you get some sleep?"

Demyx gave him a very piercing look, then smirked humorlessly. "Sorry, Roxas; I'm out of cookies."

_Dammit. I might as well have said "I'm going to try to escape as soon as you fall asleep."_ Not knowing what else to do, he went over and looked out the window himself. "You're sure about this."

"Roxas, they want to kill me," Demyx hissed. "Of course I'm sure."

Demyx was one of his best friends. He should not be on the verge of terror. He should not be wondering whether Demyx was going to drag him all over Hell's half acre, or offer him drugged or poisoned food, or just punch his lights out. None of this should have been real.

_I need to get out of here...quickly..._

He pretended to stare blankly out the window, praying Demyx wouldn't realize he was watching the streets closely too...watching for help...hoping desperately for a rescuer...was that - a dark figure standing by the corner - a Dusk, a person, he couldn't tell - he glanced over - Demyx was looking the other way - he glanced back - human, it looked human, not a Dusk - Demyx was still looking the other way, but his head was starting to turn - he had to do it - he had to try - he raised one hand, and suddenly a wide beam of piercing light poured out of the window and into the street.

"_Godsdamnit, Roxas...!_"

Demyx grabbed his arm and wrenched him away from the window, knocking him to the floor. While Demyx towered over him with clenched fists, he squeezed his eyes shut and braced himself for the blow - or possibly a serious beating, given the way Demyx had been acting - but...Demyx... - too late for regret and reminiscing, all he could do now was hope that whoever was out there had seen the light and was coming to help, or at least was going to get help...why hadn't Demyx hit him yet? He opened one eye a crack - yes, Demyx was still standing over him with fists clenched and raised and blood in his eye...he just wasn't moving...and as he watched, Demyx sighed, and unclenched his fists, and lowered his hands. "Dammit, Roxas...why did you do that?" he said in a low voice.

"I...I wanted..." Roxas's voice seemed to be missing in action. He couldn't even get three whole words out.

Demyx's hands clenched into fists again, and Roxas wondered if he was going to get hit now, but then Demyx abruptly jabbed a finger at him. "Don't move," he hissed angrily. "Don't even breathe loudly." Roxas was so paralyzed with fear and anxiety by then that he probably couldn't have moved if ordered to. He expected Demyx to summon his sitar in preparation to deal with whoever had been out there and should have seen the light, but instead he stood near the door, on the hinge side for the element of surprise, in a fighting stance Roxas had never seen before. He was suddenly afraid for whoever was going to come through that door.

No one did. Instead, a portal opened in the middle of the room. "Thank Kingdom Hearts...I was hoping I'd get here first..."

Roxas didn't even see Demyx turn around to face Axel instead of the door without dropping his fighting stance - it just happened. "Why might that be, big brother?" Demyx asked in a soft, dangerous voice. "Were your brotherly instincts crying out for you to take action...or did the Superior offer a big reward?"

Axel's face crumpled, like he was about to cry. "Dammit, Demyx, or Lung Qin Xiang - whoever the fuck you are..."

Demyx's face twisted into a smirk. "No, seriously, tell me, what is it? Munny? Time off? First crack at a heart? What?"

Axel held out his hands pleadingly. "Come back!" was all he said.

Demyx raised an eyebrow. "And...is that all you want? What do you get out of it? You never did answer that question."

"I just want you guys to come back before anyone else gets hurt," Axel begged - there were little clouds of steam hovering around his eyes.

Demyx narrowed his eyes. "Touching. Real touching." Roxas gulped at his raw callousness, but there was nothing he could do - he was frozen to the spot, unable to even squeak. "Now, if you'll kindly get your scrawny ass out of here, I have things to do..."

Axel just stared at him, a tortured look in his eyes. "I'd been so sure there was something left," he whispered. Then, unexpectedly, he tore his robe and shirt off and turned his back to Demyx. His back was criss-crossed with deep scars, some of which were still faintly red - reminders of the torture he'd suffered the last time he went to the Land of Dragons. Roxas still didn't know the whole story behind them, but Demyx had to - he'd been there. "Remember this, Demyx? Who else is going to get hurt so you can get what you want? You've got Saix, Zexion, and Xigbar - who's next?"

The world held completely still for a very long moment, during which Roxas was dead certain Axel would be next. When he finally worked up the nerve to actually look, Axel was still standing there, with his back to Demyx and his head half-turned towards him, apparently wondering why he had been neither thrashed nor drowned. Demyx's angry, contemptuous expression had gone dead slack, and he was staring at Axel with wide eyes. Then, slowly, he sank to the floor and covered his face with his hands. "When the two of you get back to the castle, tell Xigbar he should have left out the chit-chat and just fired when he had the chance."

Axel and Roxas just stared at each other - after 24 hours of nightmare, had it really been that easy? "What...about you?" Axel asked hesitantly.

Demyx looked up at him - the strange light in his eyes was now as blank and lifeless as a fluorescent ceiling light. "I have to return the ring to the Land of Dragons," he said dully, and only then did Roxas notice the pale green band on his finger.

"Take it off," Axel said quietly.

Demyx shook his head. "I can't take it off right now. I have to go back. Just...go, both of you. If you have to tell them anything, tell them I'm no longer a threat." He opened a portal and disappeared, leaving Axel and Roxas alone in the building.

They continued to stare at each other for a few long moments. Then, without warning, Axel collapsed to the ground in slow motion. Roxas finally snapped out of it and raced over to his side. "Sugar," Axel murmured weakly. "Need sugar. Dunno how I stayed up for so long..."

Roxas hastily dug in his pockets for a few pieces of hard candy, unwrapping them and stuffing them into Axel's hand. Axel hastily shoved them into his mouth, chewing them instead of waiting for them to dissolve. "What'd you do to yourself this time?" Roxas asked in a low voice.

"Spent all night lookin' for ya...wasn' payin' too much attention...damn glad I found you first and _then_ keeled over..." Axel started to sit upright as the sugar made its way into his bloodstream. "God...even with the sugar, I'm wiped out..." He sighed heavily, and stared at the spot where Demyx had disappeared. Tears started to well up in his eyes and steam away. "Dammit..." He shook his head. "I wanted to save both of you."

"...What do you mean? Are they...if he comes back...will..."

Axel shook his head. "No. No one's been killed, or even permanently disabled; if he gave himself up right now, they'd have no reason to kill him...He's going to kill himself."

* * *

_Now I understand why slaying dragons used to be a top priority..._

Lung Qin Xiang kept his expression as neutral and placid as possible as he returned the Jade Dragon Ring to the somewhat bemused but still overjoyed monks. He no longer needed it, he explained, and he knew it would remain safe at the monastery until it was needed once more. The monks were honored by his confidence, and would of course keep the ring safe at all costs until he or another dragon had need of it, and he thanked them, changed back into his dragon form, and flew off towards the mountains without explaining that he would never come back for it.

He caught a glimpse of himself reflected in a lake, and was forced to look down. He landed next to it, returned to human form, and looked again, but the view was the same - there was a monster staring back at him. A vicious, breathtakingly cruel monster that deserved to be slain at the earliest opportunity.

Just as well, then, that he wanted nothing more than to slay it.

_I wanted confidence, not arrogance...strength to protect myself, not to hurt others...and what a monster I've made of myself..._ He looked beseechingly to the sky as his shape changed again, then continued towards the mountains. At the very least, he could make use of his intelligence to make sure his strength and arrogance never endangered anyone again.

And freezing wasn't a bad way to go, as he remembered. A little on the slow side, but pretty painless towards the end.

The cold mountain winds slashed ineffectively at his scales. No, this would never do. His human form would freeze through far more quickly - smaller, weaker, with thinner skin, vulnerable in all the ways his true form wasn't. The difference was obvious as soon as his he changed shape - the wind tore straight through his inadequate clothes and flimsy skin, digging right into his bones. Yes...He sat down calmly, as though he was meditating in the comfort of the temple. The monster he'd become would die here.

It was a beautiful view from the mountaintop, even though his eyelids were trying to freeze shut. And it hadn't taken more than a few minutes before his hands and ears stopped aching and went completely numb. His nose had a little ways to go, yet. He battled the instinct to break position and huddle into a ball, with his arms and legs tight against his chest - that would only delay the freezing process, and he wanted the monster dead as quickly as possible. It was difficult to remain steady, considering how violently he was shivering, but he forced himself to hold as still as he could manage.

He suddenly realized he was no longer shivering. In fact, he thought he was seated in front of a fire, wrapped in a warm blanket. He knew it was only a comforting hallucination before the end, but he was glad to see it nonetheless. Soon he'd be gone, and the monster he was would be no more of a threat.

A hand came out of nowhere to grip his shoulder - no hallucination, but very real. He tried to twist away, but the cold had numbed his thoughts and actions as much as his skin. "Wh-what are you d-doing, D-Demyx?"

He tried to get away, to stand up, to run - but standing up alone was a challenge, with his hands and feet as numb as bricks. It took him three tries to get any words out. "Leave me alone," he murmured. "For the love of all that's holy...let the monster die. You of all people should want me dead."

Roxas shook his head - his arms were wrapped tightly against his chest, and he was shivering violently. "N-no. The stupid d-dragon, I d-don't give a damn ab-bout. It's D-Demyx we want b-back."

Lung Qin Xiang sighed. Now that he was standing, he was finding it difficult to remain that way - his legs were so numb, and his body was too weak to support him anymore...unable to catch himself, he stumbled and fell facedown in the snow. "No..." he whispered, raising his head with difficulty. "After what I did...let me go. I have no use." Roxas shook his head again; his lips were definitely turning blue. "Go away...go home..."

"'M not g-goin' home unless you c-come with me."

Lung Qin Xiang sighed. Breathing was starting to become an effort. "Not worth saving...I meant to die here. Go...or you will too..."

Roxas was only shivering weakly now, and his eyes were only half-open at best. "N-no. T-told you...not l-leavin' without you..."

He meant it. Damn it all, he meant it. For reasons Lung Qin Xiang in all his wisdom could not comprehend, Roxas was really determined to stay right where he was - until he keeled over dead, if it came to that - unless and until he agreed to return. But he could not. The monster was dying; he could not now back out, and let himself live the way he was...

But more than that, he couldn't let Roxas die.

"Help me up..."

If he had to save himself to save Roxas, then that was what he had to do. The monster would have to live, but at least no one would die for its sake. In a way, that was its own sort of victory, he supposed, but it seemed a hollow one at best.

"T-took you long enough to s-see sense..." Roxas's hands fumbled a few times before he managed to open a portal. "Bet Ax is f-freakin' out all over ag-gain..." He hauled Lung Qin Xiang upright and half-dragged him to the portal - the portal that now separated Lung Qin Xiang from Demyx, the little musician they seemed so desperate to save. And why? They _weren't_ separate. Demyx had chosen to become Lung Qin Xiang, and was now going to have to pay for the monster's crimes - the monster that had been forced to live, under both names, by the one he'd wronged most. Why?

_Maybe...if the one who has least cause to forgive you still can...maybe you're still worth forgiving._

It seemed doubtful. But maybe things would look different on the other side of the portal.

* * *

AN: And after this, how could there not be a Part 3? But hunt me down and beat me if I try to extend this to Part 4...


	3. The Healing of Lung Qin Xiang

_Kingdom Hearts...what the hell happened to my life?_

Normally, after stupid, dangerous adventures like that, life went back to normal in short order, with maybe a few temporary changes while injuries healed or complications were sorted out. Stupid, dangerous adventures were a dime a dozen in the Organization - Axel had survived more of them in five years than he had during his whole life with a heart, and he considered the five years without an overall improvement, except for the "no heart" bit. They'd certainly been a lot more fun.

Of course, that was before Saix's powers had been totally disabled and he'd turned into a complete recluse until his weapon repaired itself and his powers returned - which was an improvement in a way, but disturbing in a completely different way. That was before Zexion started living out of straws and IVs because he couldn't eat solid food with a broken jaw. That was back when Xigbar had and often used the right to save the most "fun" - often the most dangerous, but Xigbar called that fun - missions for himself, instead of sitting around the castle nursing broken ribs. That was back before Axel had had to spend a week and a half sleeping on Roxas's floor just to make sure Roxas slept at all.

That was back when the human-sized lump on the floor still talked and smiled and laughed and had a little more vitality than Axel's desk chair. Hard to believe this was all his fault.

He gently nudged it - him - with a toe. "Doing okay?" The very stupidest of all stupid questions, he knew, but it wasn't like it made a huge difference. Demyx didn't respond to either the nudge or the question, just continued to stare blankly at the darkness under Axel's bed. Axel had to look twice to make sure he was still breathing. _Those eyes...they're so dead...they're a corpse's eyes..._

_Why did you die like that?_

It wasn't like his punishment had been unreasonably harsh - hell, he'd gotten away pretty lightly; the elder members must have made generous allowances for him not exactly being in his right mind. He'd been given medications that would blunt his powers for a period of time - not so high a dosage that he couldn't summon his sitar, or so Axel had been led to believe, but even if he could, he never did. His duties for the next six months would keep him inside the walls of the Castle that Never Was, under the watchful eyes of his superiors. He wasn't allowed to leave the World that Never Was without at least two companions, and he was strictly forbidden to return to the Land of Dragons for any reason. He hadn't even spent more than a day in the dungeons.

Well, that was how it had originally been worked out. It hadn't taken them long to decide that Demyx was really only fit for light duties anymore - he no longer seemed to have the mental capacity to handle anything he didn't understand already. He refused to wear his hearing aids now, and any attempt to explain some new task to him - through sign language, speech, the written word, any means at all - was met with a zombielike stare and no action. Eventually he'd been assigned the supposedly permanent job of washing dishes, which lasted about three weeks before he'd abruptly tried to slash his own throat with a knife he was washing. The last time Axel had seen any life in his eyes at all, he'd been glaring at Xaldin with unconcealed anger and bitterness - probably for grabbing the knife out of his hand before he could finish the job.

Now he was supposed to be closely supervised at all times, to forestall another suicide attempt, and he was off the medication that blocked his powers. Axel could have told Vexen it wouldn't do a thing to help him - it wasn't a side effect. He'd been like this ever since Roxas dragged him back from the Land of Dragons, frostbitten and practically catatonic.

Axel quietly slid off the bed and sat down next to him. Demyx blinked, but that was all the reaction he gave. "Don't be like this, little brother," he whispered, making sure Demyx could see his face. "Come back." For a moment, he thought maybe the endearment had elicited some reaction, some little spark within those dead eyes - but it was so unlikely; probably all he'd seen was a reflection of his own desperate hope.

* * *

_Are they just not getting the point, or are they getting it and steadfastly ignoring it?_

Axel was now fast asleep, as was most everyone in the Castle that Never Was. Demyx, however, was wide awake, and wandering the abandoned halls in his pajamas with a purpose and stealth that would have astounded anyone who saw him during what passed as the day. The fact that he was moving of his own volition would have astounded anyone who saw him during the day - he knew from watching their faces and reading their lips that they now considered him about as intelligent as a houseplant, but still worth keeping alive for some reason.

He wouldn't have minded being no more intelligent than a houseplant, truthfully. Except the houseplant that kept coming into his mind when he thought of himself like that was Audrey from "Little Shop of Horrors". Though he had to admit, it suited him.

He stared into the mirror of one of the castle's many unused bathrooms - no one else would bother to venture here until the Organization grew to at least 20 members and one of the adjoining rooms became occupied. The man that looked back at him was familiar, but Demyx could not recognize himself in that face, and hadn't been able to since the car accident. He knew it was his own - if nothing else, the bandage on the other man's throat was a giveaway - but he never recognized himself in the mirror.

For a brief moment, another face loomed in the mirror. This was the face of a _lung_, the most powerful of Chinese dragons - blue-scaled, gold-crested, razor-fanged, enormous. Monstrous. This was the face of the dragon Lung Qin Xiang, and Demyx recognized himself in it.

Without warning, the mirror shattered. He stared bemusedly at the bloodied edges of the fist-sized hole in the glass, and at his own bleeding knuckles, then decided it was all to the good - having punched out the mirror, he was now spared the sight of the monster he'd become. Tears seeping unheeded from his eyes, he grabbed one of the two toothbrushes that was sitting on the counter and jammed the handle down his throat, then leaned over the toilet while everything he'd eaten that day came back up. The first several days, he'd tried simply refusing to eat, but that had landed him in the hospital wing with an IV in his arm, so he'd adopted this expedient, and taken over the empty bathroom to hide what he was doing. Dammit, he wanted the monster to _die_ - freezing, starvation, bleeding, bulimia, he wanted himself _dead_. If the slow way was the only way no one would notice and stop, then it had to be the slow way. Every pound lost, every weakened muscle, counted as its own tiny victory over the monster he'd made of himself. In the meantime, he'd continue to pretend he was barely smart enough to brush his own teeth, and no one had to know how he spent his nights.

Speaking of brushing his teeth and not letting anyone know what he did at night...he rinsed off the handle of the toothbrush he'd picked up first, then picked up the other toothbrush and actually brushed his teeth with it. It just wouldn't do to have some smell of vomit still on his breath tomorrow morning. Once that task was done, and he'd finished cleaning up after himself, he would have liked to return to his room and go to sleep, but sleep just wasn't coming tonight. Instead, he went back to wandering the abandoned halls with stealth but no purpose. Eventually, he found himself seated against the door to his own bedroom, unable to work up the energy to fish his key out of his pocket and unlock his door, and - unwisely - thinking. Once upon a time, he remembered, he could talk and smile and laugh, and listen to music, and play, and compose, and goof off with his friends, and go kick around Twilight Town when he was bored, and eat without wanting to throw everything back up, and look in the mirror without wanting to hide or smash it...once upon a time, he'd been happy.

He'd destroyed it all himself, and so much else besides. Why wouldn't they let him die?

A red light suddenly flared in the darkness, and Demyx instinctively glanced up, letting his eyes go glazed and dull. (So what in Kingdom Hearts's name are you doing out here crying in the middle of the night...) Axel tried the doorknob with the hand that wasn't full of fire, and was stymied. (Lock yourself out of your room? How'd you manage that?) Demyx neither nodded nor shook his head - it wasn't all an act he was putting on; he genuinely did not want to interact with anyone who'd had to deal with the dragon. If it weren't for Axel, what might he have done, so taken with his own power as he was, and so determined to have things his way...He whimpered inaudibly and slid down to the floor, covering his face with his hands.

Axel gently moved his hands away so he could see, for which Demyx wouldn't have thanked him if he could. (All right...I'm going to go get Roxas so he can get your door unlocked, and then you can get inside and go back to sleep, okay?)

Dammit. Roxas. The one person Demyx never wanted to see again, at least until he figured out how to say "I'm sorry" in a way that actually meant something when neither his voice nor his hands would work. No matter what he tried to explain away to himself as "self-defense" or "they wanted to kill me", he could not forgive himself for taking his friend hostage like that. So many things could have gone wrong so quickly - even just losing his temper for a moment - and what could have happened...

Demyx hid his face again as Axel walked down the hall away from him, and kept it hidden even as lights flashed and doors swung open and someone carefully picked him up and tucked him into bed.

* * *

"He's way too light," Axel said softly as he closed Demyx's door behind him. "I know he eats - hell, I have to cut up his food for him because he can't be trusted with a knife anymore - but it's like it's not doing him any good; he should be twenty or thirty pounds heavier. Maybe more."

"What do you think is wrong?" Roxas asked. "Besides...the obvious?" "The obvious" being that spending 24 hours as a cold-blooded dragon outside the Land of Dragons had evidently broken Demyx's mind beyond repair. For the most part, he seemed next best to mindless - not much better off than a Dusk.

"He's dying," Axel whispered. "I dunno what's wrong with him...but I'm pretty sure it's nothing any of Vexen's pills and potions are gonna fix. It's like he's just kind of wasting away." He looked down suddenly, and the fire in his left hand brightened. "Shit. There is blood all over my hand, and I'm pretty sure it's his."

Without another word, they forced Demyx's door back open and stared at him by the firelight. He stared right back at them, eyes dull and lifeless as marbles. Axel flipped the sheets back to discover that Demyx's right hand was cut and bleeding in several places. "Kingdom Hearts, what the hell'd you do to yourself? Punch out a window?" No response; Demyx hadn't been capable of speech in six weeks. "What the hell were you doing wandering around the halls after midnight anyway?" Still no response. Axel might as well have been talking to a Dusk. "For the love of Kingdom Hearts..."

Roxas sighed - it was obvious Axel was going to get exactly nowhere even if he tried all night. "Axel, he _can't_ answer. Give it up already..." For a brief instant, he and Demyx made eye contact, something both of them had been doing everything in their power to avoid lately. Well, Roxas had; it was debatable how well Demyx knew what he was doing. Or it had been. Something flashed in those dead eyes during that brief instant - something that was neither the old friend he missed and mourned or the dragon that still haunted his nightmares. What he saw was a soul in torment - full of pain and grief and bitterness and aching regret and a self-hatred so intense it permitted neither hope nor forgiveness nor any will to live. In the next instant, Demyx flinched away and covered his eyes again, ignoring the blood that streamed down his arm. "Kingdom Hearts..."

Axel grimaced - he had no idea what had just happened, except that Demyx was avoiding eye contact again. "Flinchy, isn't he? Dammit, we'll have to go wake Vexen up to see about that hand, and then I guess he won't be allowed near glass objects...if only the damn snowman had some idea how to really _fix_ him..."

"No...it's not that...it's..." Roxas had no idea what to call it. "I _saw_ him...for a second..."

Axel blinked uncomprehendingly at him for a few seconds, then sighed. "See, I knew you were still in there somewhere," he murmured, turning back to Demyx. "Rox, Fori'd still be awake right now, wouldn't he? He doesn't go to bed until, what, 3:00?"

Roxas nodded. "He's probably in the library right now."

Axel thought for a few moments. "No. He'd try to ask a few too many questions. And knowing him, even if he couldn't get answers from us, he'd start playing Sherlock Holmes and get answers out of thin air. I think I remember enough first aid to keep him from bleeding to death." He disappeared into the bathroom and emerged a few moments later with a packet of sterile bandages and antibiotic ointment. Not sure what else to do, Roxas provided him with some steady light to work by; Demyx just stared blankly. Once Demyx's hand had been bandaged to the point where he looked like he was wearing a giant mitten, Axel stared thoughtfully at the floor for a minute. "So, Roxas, how do you feel about being an accessory to kidnapping?"

"..." Roxas just stared. "...Accessory to kidnapping?"

"Specifically, you can be my alibi. I gotta get him out of here. He's just gonna waste away otherwise. No matter what fancy medical tricks Vexen tries to play, he's gonna die if he stays here. There's gotta be someone somewhere who can do something..."

Roxas swallowed hard, remembering the deep self-hatred he'd seen in those sea-blue eyes for an instant. "Axel...are you...sure it's a good idea?"

The flame in Axel's hand flared brightly enough to illuminate every detail of his horrified face. "What the...why the hell _wouldn't_ it be?!" Demyx buried his face in his pillow.

"He wants to die, Ax," Roxas said without meaning to. "He's desperate to die."

Axel's eyes bulged for a second. "Dear God." Then he closed his eyes and gritted his teeth. "Fuck..." He took a few deep breaths, seemed to think hard for a few moments, then shook his head. "I can't make it work anymore. At least not without disappearing myself. Not unless I know where I'm going in the first place - there's no safe place I can hide him where I can be sure he'll be safe from himself...no. Not the Nexus. There are a zillion ways to off yourself in the Nexus, and he'd just refuse to come back. Rox, can you think of any world where it's just straight-up impossible to kill yourself or let yourself get killed?" Roxas shook his head numbly. "Thought so...dammit. Maybe send him to Fantasia; they'll keep him too hopped-up on silly pills to care...except he'd OD given half a chance. There's nowhere I can think of where he'd be safe from himself without having someone to keep a close eye on him day-in, day-out...and nowhere I can think of where we'd find someone else who could." Axel sighed. "So much for being my alibi."

"...What were you even planning?"

Axel waved a hand in frustration. "Never mind. I'll explain it to you as we go along - as I make it up."

* * *

Damn them. Gods damn them. How stupid could they be? To want to save him...the monster who'd almost destroyed them...at least Roxas had shown a little sense, just before he couldn't stand to watch anymore. No, it _wasn't_ a good idea. Leaving the World that Never Was wouldn't make him any less of a monster, no matter where he went. And _kidnapping_ him? What the _hell_ had Axel been drinking?

He must have still been working on the assumption that Demyx was barely smarter than furniture. Fine. Let him. He'd steal their fucking thunder. He'd kidnap his own damn self. By the time they even figured out he was gone, he'd be dead.

Anger and hatred clashed and mixed with pain and exhaustion in his mind, until he drifted off into a restless sleep full of fire and clouds of steam and brimstone. He found himself at the edge of a boiling pool of mud that reeked of sulfur and burned like acid, wanting to just throw himself in and be done with it, not caring at all how much it would hurt, so long as the monster died, and his powers could hurt no one else - but no matter how he struggled, something kept holding him back, barring him from ending this torture. He couldn't break free, no matter how he tried - but with one desperate burst of strength, he threw himself into the boiling mud, dragging whatever had been holding him back down with him. Below the surface, everything was shockingly clear, and agonizingly painful...unendingly painful; he wasn't dying, he was just sinking, in terrible pain inside and out...whatever had been trying to hold him back was now pulling him down; he couldn't even begin to swim to the surface...he looked to either side, to see what was weighing him down, and discovered he was carrying Axel and Roxas down with him, their eyes wide with terror but neither one willing to let go.

He jerked awake to find his throat raw, his sheets soaked, and Axel standing over him with a ball of fire and a sleep-deprived look. (Why am I not as surprised as I should be to learn that the one time you make any sound anymore is when you wake up screaming from a nightmare?)

Demyx rolled over and buried his face in his pillow, sickened by the fear of making his dream come true. He was distantly aware that he was sobbing uncontrollably, but it didn't matter to him. Even more distant was the warm hand gently stroking his hair. When another hand tried to turn his head away from the pillow, he shied away and struggled - he didn't want to look up; he didn't want to see anything, especially someone he'd dragged down to damnation with him. No, knowing it was just a dream did not make him feel any better. When the hands disappeared, he relaxed slightly, then jerked as they came back and started pulling at his ear. Suddenly, half the world suddenly came into focus in a whole new dimension, and he froze. "There, will that calm you down enough to get you to hold still for sixty seconds?"

Demyx was paralyzed - this was the first time he'd heard sound in six weeks, and it was disorienting, even more so because he was only hearing in one ear. "God...glad that worked. I thought you were going to bite me." He still didn't look up, even when a hand came back to stroke his hair again. "So...in an all-fired hurry to die, are you? Sorry, but I'm in no hurry to let you." Demyx curled up into a ball, trying to will Axel to go away. Even when his other hearing aid was forced on, he willed himself to hold completely still and pretend Axel wasn't there.

When he was wrapped in a blanket and carried away, ignoring Axel became ever so much harder.

"What the hell are you doing?" he wanted to scream, just instinctively, but nothing came out but a thin croaky noise.

Axel chuckled. "Told 'em he wasn't a vegetable."

"Axel, how do I re-enable your 'thinking things through' program?" That was Roxas's voice. Of course. Axel would drag him into anything.

"My what now? Do I have one of those?"

Demyx squirmed and kicked, trying to escape - dammit, he hadn't expected to be kidnapped right away! He'd expected Axel would have a little sense, take at least a day to plan...of course, this was Axel he was talking about. Act now, think later. "Quit that. If I dropped you right now, I think you'd break. Hell, you don't even weigh as much as Roxas does anymore. What the hell's been eating you?" Demyx managed to uncover his face and glared venomously at Axel. Axel, unexpectedly, leaned over and smelled his breath. "Puke and toothpaste. Dammit...been making yourself throw up everything you eat?"

"_What?!_"

"No wonder he's turned into such a skeleton..." Axel tightened his grip and flipped the blanket back over Demyx's face. "Roxas? Portal to Twilight Town, please? Preferably somewhere where we won't draw attention?"

"Are you -"

"I'll tell you more when we get there. Just do it before he figures out how to scream."

"You're sure about this."

"Roxaaaaas..." Axel hissed.

"This was all your idea." There was the sound of a portal opening, and Demyx was carried through it to someplace with colder air, that smelled like the outdoors. "So, Mr. Idea Man...where do we go from here?"

"If there's any place that serves food still open...we start with that." Unexpectedly, Demyx was set back down on his feet, and the blanket was removed. "All right, try to pretend you're not being kidnapped." Demyx rubbed his eyes, disoriented by this sudden turn of events - very sudden indeed; that couldn't have taken more than five minutes. He looked around - they were in a trash-strewn back alley that didn't have more than a few shuttered windows looking out at it, and it was still dark out. Axel and Roxas were standing within arm's reach, which quickly throttled his half-formed ideas of bolting. "First priority - we gotta get some food in you. And just to forestall any tricks, if you have to go to the bathroom, we're following you...Wow, if looks could kill."

Largely against his will, Demyx was led by a long, circuitous route to an area of Twilight Town he didn't think he'd ever seen before - he suspected Axel and Roxas were lost, but it wasn't like he was going to mention it. Rather unfortunately, so he thought, the two of them found an all-night diner anyway, and forced him to sit down while they ordered for him, and for themselves. "So, are you going to actually feed yourself?" Axel hissed in his ear once the waitress was out of earshot. "Or will we have to force-feed you?" Demyx glared mutely at him, wishing he could work up the nerve to just haul off and deck him.

_No..._

He'd caused pain enough. Far too much. No more.

Axel and Roxas stared blankly at each other from either side of him as he started to cry.

* * *

Axel's mind was racing as he shoved down bacon and eggs without actually tasting anything. He was aware that Twilight Town's day-night cycle came as close to syncing with the artificial cycle of the World that Never Was as any world could, and that as long as it was dark out here, they were probably safe. By the time the sky started to lighten up in preparation for dawn, however, the three of them really needed to be in some other world. He strongly suspected, though he had no way to be sure, that Zexion could somehow smell the area where a portal had been and know where it had led to, by smelling traces of its destination on this side.

Maybe he was just being overawed by Zexion's reputation. He didn't want to bet very much on that.

To distract himself, he glanced over at Demyx. He was feeding himself, slowly and rather clumsily but steadily, with no visible emotions whatsoever. Roxas seemed to be keeping an eye on him just in case, which made Axel's extra attention a little unnecessary. The little butter knives they'd been supplied with were barely sharp enough to cut pancakes, anyway. And it wasn't like Demyx was going to jump up and try to hang himself from the diner's curtain rods.

Lovely. That meant the most useful thing Axel could do was fret. And eat. Insulin pumps were wonderful inventions, especially on four-meal days...

_Shit._ He only had enough insulin left in his pump for another day before it needed refilling. By then, their absences would have been noticed, and as soon as he went back for more insulin, he'd be caught, he could almost guarantee it...

He still wasn't sure it was safe to leave Demyx alone anywhere. Sure, he might decide to go along with them and keep himself hidden, or he might return to the World that Never Was on his own - everyone would probably assume he'd run off on his own, if Axel and Roxas were smart - or he might kill himself as soon as he was unsupervised.

He couldn't leave Roxas alone to keep an eye on Demyx. For Roxas's sanity's sake, if nothing else. He tried to hide it, bless him, but he was still edgy around Demyx; Axel could read him like a book by now. Even if Demyx was back to not being capable of hurting a fly, he couldn't leave the two of them alone together for too long without Roxas's nerves being stretched to the limits.

But he couldn't come along himself because he'd run out of insulin and die.

He sighed heavily, defeated before he'd even really gotten started. "Roxas, I really need lessons in thinking things through...and please, for the love of all that's holy, _don't_ say 'I told you so'."

Roxas's face twisted into a sort of half-smile, half-grimace. "...Right...if you say so...what did you forget?"

"Insulin."

Roxas rolled his eyes. "I had a feeling it had to do with diabetes care. Just insulin, or insulin and your monitor, or insulin and glucagon pens, or insulin and hard candy, or all of the above?"

"...I guess I forgot the monitor too. But I have candy and pens."

"For which miracle, give thanks," Roxas said sarcastically. "It's 4:10 - I guess you have time to run home and get a refill, and your monitor. Maybe leave some sort of note that will make us look like the heroes instead of the kidnappers." Demyx glared at him. "Sorry. It's for your own good, or so Axel convinced me." Axel glared at him. "Don't give me that look. It was your idea."

Axel kept glaring. "So what am I supposed to be writing in said note?"

Roxas shrugged. "I dunno. Demyx ran away on his own, you noticed he was no longer in his room, went and got me, and we went to find him before he hurt himself? I think they'd buy the first part, at least...they all think he's off his rocker anyway." Demyx's scowl deepened. "...It's nice that you're actually responding to us, but please quit glaring at me like that." Demyx frowned even more at that, but he looked petulant, not menacing. Roxas was still looking at him cautiously.

Axel sighed. "Roxas, you are hereby the brains of this outfit, got it memorized? All right, you write the note on...got anything in your pockets? Or use the placemat..."

Roxas shook his head and dug a crumpled receipt out of his pocket. "Not the placemat...if we'd just realized Demyx had gone AWOL, what would either of us be doing writing a note on a placemat? A receipt we had in a cloak pocket, on the other hand..."

"And, see, I would never have thought of that on my own..."

"Clearly." Roxas scribbled hastily on the back of the receipt. "Have you thought of where we're going to go from here? Or are we just going to hide out in Twilight Town? It seems too obvious..."

"I kind of started on that train of thought, but then I realized I only had enough insulin for one more day...if you're done writing, I'll take that, and we can talk about it when I get back." Roxas involuntarily glanced at Demyx, with barely-concealed anxiety. "I won't be gone long. Trust me, I know what I'm doing."

"Do you have any idea how much it worries me when you say that..." Roxas muttered, as Axel handed him enough munny to pay the bill, took the receipt with the note, and disappeared into an alley where his portal wouldn't be seen. It didn't occur to him until he was filling his insulin pump that if he disappeared for what seemed like a legitimate reason, he could come back for refills without fear of getting caught. They'd have no reason to catch him. He grabbed his monitor, test strips, and case out of the drawer, left the note someplace where it would be quickly found, and paused, instead of portaling straight back to the diner. Then he hastily ducked back into his bedroom and poured himself a shot.

Roxas and Demyx were standing outside the diner when he got back, both of them looking like they'd love to be anywhere but there. "Hey...so, now we can talk about where to go from here before it turns daylight..."

Roxas just stared at him. "Axel, is that whiskey on your breath?"

"...Maybe. Anyway, as a starting point, where do you think they'd figure is the least likely place for him to run off to on his own? Seeing as that's what he supposedly did." Demyx glared at him, and Axel realized a moment too late he should stop referring to him like he wasn't there.

Roxas kept staring at him. "How much did you have to drink, before this discussion gets any further?"

"One shot. Just one shot. Anyway, what do you think is the last world they'll check?"

Roxas sighed and rolled his eyes. "Either the Land of Dragons, or some zombie-infested postapocalyptic pit of hell that's even worse than the Nexus."

Axel thought for a moment, then smiled. "The Land of Dragons. Why didn't I think of that before?"

"...Because you just lost your last weak excuse for sense?"

"No. Seriously. Like you said, it'd be the last place they'd look."

"Axel, I had a second thought. You might try it sometime. He's not allowed to go there - it'd stand to reason that'd be the first place he'd run to."

"Assuming they're assuming he has any sense left. Do you really want to go to a postapocalyptic pit of hell? I don't either. Compared to that, the Land of Dragons sounds wonderful."

Someone a lot taller than Roxas suddenly laid a hand on Axel's collar. He turned, and Demyx shook his head very seriously. Apparently the Land of Dragons wasn't his first choice of hiding place. "Fine. Where do you want to go?" Demyx stared at him blankly for a few very long moments, opened his mouth, and said absolutely nothing. The best he could manage was a frustrated expression and a weak hissing sound. "Awesome. So how long before you're able to talk again?" Demyx glared at him. He turned to Roxas, who was shaking his head almost automatically. "So unless you come up with a better idea within fifteen seconds, the Land of Dragons it is."

"Atlantica."

"Too obvious. Way too obvious. Eleven."

"Port Royal?"

"Are you nuts? Eight."

"New Orleans?"

"Also way too obvious. Four."

"Anywhere but the Land of Dragons!"

"Like where? Zero. Time's up. We're going." Already seeing the first hints of dawn in the sky, Axel opened a portal and physically dragged Demyx and Roxas through it, rather than try to convince them to cross on their own. They both looked at him like he was dragging them off to their executions.

* * *

Demyx - or Lung Qin Xiang, or some combination of the two - knew the best possible escape for him was to immediately change to dragon form and fly off, leaving Axel and Roxas stranded with no way to catch up with him. He knew that even if they managed to track him down, he could cover in hours ground that would take them days to cross, and by the time they caught up with him, he would have been long dead. He also knew that they _would_ try to track him down, and they stood an excellent chance of being hurt or killed while doing so. Wherever he went, they'd try to follow, even to Hell.

As if he didn't have enough on his conscience.

They were in enough danger just from accompanying him as he was.

As a monster.

"You shouldn't have done this." The over-amplified sound of his own voice jarred painfully in his now-sensitive ears, but he couldn't be bothered to turn his hearing aids off.

Axel whipped around so fast he almost knocked himself over. "Well, it got you talking!"

"You shouldn't have brought me here." Did Axel have a death wish or what? And was he trying to kill Roxas too? He could kill them both without trying very hard...they wouldn't even necessarily know what hit them...

_No!_

Lung Qin Xiang sank down onto the nearest rock that offered any sort of seat and covered his face with his hands, paralyzed by the knowledge of his full powers. Towards the edge of his remaining field of vision, he saw Roxas backing away from him. "I told you this was a bad idea..."

"You tell me almost every idea I have is a bad one. Look, he's talking now, which is better than he ever managed before."

"Even he doesn't want to be here. Let's get out of here already. What the hell do you think you're going to accomplish?" Lung Qin Xiang turned away and closed his eyes, feeling sick. He also removed his now-superfluous hearing aids.

"Roxas, I don't know what I'm going to accomplish, but I know what I'm _trying_ to accomplish. I'm trying to get Demyx back. I don't like having a semi-responsive automaton around; I want Demyx. Are you going to help me with that, or would you rather run home and let the rest of them know where we are so we can get hauled back and he can stay an automaton until he wastes away completely?"

"Don't talk to him like that." Where had those words come from? His own mouth, of course, but before then?

"Huh?" Lung Qin Xiang could practically see the bafflement on Axel's face, but moved his hands away from his eyes just to confirm it. He could also see Roxas glaring at Axel, looking hurt. "What did I say?" Axel wouldn't know tact if he woke up in bed with it, but Lung Qin Xiang couldn't bring himself to say so. "Um...sorry?..."

Roxas's voice was half a snarl. "Thanks a ton, Axel."

Axel talked fast, obviously trying to salvage some part of the conversation and his assumed leadership role. "Look, I know you're scared -"

"Scared?!" Roxas's voice was too loud and defiant for his denial to be genuine. "Scared of what, for Kingdom Hearts's sake?" While the two of them argued, Lung Qin Xiang tuned them out and absorbed himself in his own thoughts. Foremost of these was - why were Axel and Roxas so determined to follow him from Hell to breakfast? And what did Axel mean when he said he wanted Demyx back? Why didn't they want him to die? No - why did they care whether he lived or died? After what he did...why did they forgive him?

_If you were such a callous, cruel beast as you think you are, why would you even give a damn?_

_What?_ He was a little surprised by his own thought. It gave him pause. If he was such a monster as all that, why _did_ he care?

"Hello. Are you hungry?"

Lung Qin Xiang looked up. All of a sudden, sharing the clearing with them was a pretty girl about Roxas's age, with glossy black hair and innocent eyes, holding a cloth bag. "I was out with my mother and father, and I went ahead of them to find food...I found more than the three of us can eat. Would you like some?" She smiled and held out the bag to Roxas, who was closest.

Roxas half-reached for the bag, obviously tempted. Axel was more cautious. "Where'd you come from? Who are you?"

The girl smiled again, very prettily. "I was out with my mother and father in the forest...call me Bai. Do you like wild mushrooms?" She held out the bag again, and Roxas reached for it with more confidence. Lung Qin Xiang thought she looked oddly familiar, for some reason...and just as he decided she looked very much like a Chinese version of Naminé, his eyes seemed to focus in a different dimension just long enough for him to see the curve of bare bone underneath the pale skin and dark hair, and the death's-head grin under that sweet smile.

"Bai - _Bai Gu Jing!_ She's a demon!" He sprang to his feet, all other thoughts forgotten - and froze. Consciously, he wanted to change into his dragon form, and kill the skeleton-demoness before she could do anything to Roxas, but something in his unconscious mind was balking him at exactly the wrong time. He couldn't transform here any more than he could have in Twilight Town.

Axel was under no such unconscious restrictions. With a roar, he summoned his chakrams and lunged between Roxas and Bai Gu Jing, slashing at the demoness with weapons blazing. Before Lung Qin Xiang could choke out a warning, the bag she'd been carrying disappeared, along with her pretty smile. Her now-skeletal fingers elongated into lethal claws, and with a vicious snarl, she slashed at Axel's face and chest. As Axel collapsed, she disappeared, leaving Lung Qin Xiang to stare at the place where she'd been.

Roxas immediately fell to his knees next to Axel's body. "He's not hurt," he murmured. Indeed, Bai Gu Jing's bony claws had left no physical mark on his skin or clothing. But Lung Qin Xiang's magical senses could tell she'd done very much worse to him than mere physical injury. "Come on, Ax...wake up..."

"Roxas..."

"Wake up, Axel...please..."

Feeling like he was about to pick up the business end of a lit torch with it, Lung Qin Xiang put a hand on Roxas's shoulder. "Roxas."

Roxas looked up, glanced around as if disoriented, and then looked right at him. "_Can_ he wake up?" he asked, looking very forlorn. "He's still breathing - what did she do to him?"

"I..." Lung Qin Xiang sighed. "I don't know. I...think she may have been trying to steal his heart, and tore his mind from his soul instead."

"And...what does that mean?" Roxas asked very hesitantly.

Lung Qin Xiang swallowed hard. "...I don't know."

Roxas looked like a very small, very scared child just then, next to Axel's very long, very still body. "What's gonna happen now?"

_All this trouble I caused by misusing my powers...and now see what happens when I don't use them at all._ Lung Qin Xiang shook his head. "Nothing good...I can feel it..."

"Is there anything we can do?" Roxas whispered very softly.

"Don't know that either." All of a sudden, some aspect of Demyx suddenly flared up and took over, and Lung Qin Xiang found himself giving Roxas a hug, and noting with regret how the younger boy's body went rigid. "Roxas...I know you're not at all comfortable here to begin with, and Bai Gu Jing was targeting you, after all - she went after Axel because he got in the way. And when Axel wakes up - if he wakes up - he's going to be a completely different person. He may not recognize you, or remember you at all. And as I said, I don't know if there's anything that can be done for him. Would you like to go home?" For the life of him, he couldn't say why he'd made the offer - it just seemed like it had to be done.

Roxas sighed heavily, ruffling Axel's hair. "You know, you're being less scary right now than all the times Axel had to keep an eye on you at meals to make sure your fork made it to your mouth."

Lung Qin Xiang propped Axel up with his hands, keeping a close eye on how he was breathing and whether he showed any other sign of life, and sighed heavily. He never even considered taking the opportunity to abandon them and let Roxas drag Axel home. "...Think it's too late to go back to Twilight Town and pick up that blanket?"

* * *

Roxas didn't think he'd ever be able to get to sleep. It's not that the conditions weren't comfortable - though they weren't; Axel was wrapped up in the one actual blanket they had, and Demyx and Roxas were making do with their cloaks and the ground. The real cause was somewhere between fear of the demon, fear of Demyx - though he'd been acting more like himself now than he had in weeks, he was a dragon now, and on his home territory - and fear for Axel, who had yet to wake up. The hunger didn't help either.

Somehow, he found himself waking up shortly after dawn, with something very warm snuggled up against him. He looked around in confusion - it was Axel; he must have come around in the middle of the night or something. "When did you wake up?" he murmured.

Axel's eyes popped open, and he instantly rolled away from Roxas, trailing the blanket behind him. For an instant, he was crouched on his hands and knees, alert and wary as a wild tiger, eyes darting all across their campsite - then his gaze settled on Roxas, and he smiled, and relaxed, and lay back down on the blanket.

Roxas was baffled. "Uh...what was that about?"

Axel looked up at him, blinking uncomprehendingly. Roxas was about to ask if he'd gone deaf, but - no, Axel had heard him talking; it was more like he didn't know what was being said. Like he'd lost the ability to understand the world's language for some reason. And - but - no...it was like...he didn't seem to know that what Roxas said was supposed to have any meaning to it. Like...like he'd forgotten language, period. But...if he'd forgotten language, period - if he couldn't tell speech from sound at all...he should be freaking out. He should be trying to get his message across with sign language, or writing, or something. If he'd forgotten those too, he should be _really_ freaking out. Instead...he didn't seem to know anything was wrong. Like he'd forgotten there was such a thing as language.

**Are you okay?** Roxas signed just in case. Axel gave him that same uncomprehending look. Roxas couldn't help but be reminded of a dog being given a command it had never heard of before.

He looked closely at Axel's eyes. There was no spark of human intelligence in there at all.

Roxas yelped and leaped back involuntarily. Axel, startled, did the same thing, looking around behind him as if trying to see what might have frightened Roxas. Roxas just stared at him - now he was the one with no idea what was going on. "Demyx! Demyx, where the hell are you?!"

A few moments later, a huge, vaguely snakelike shape rushed overhead - a dragon. Roxas knew it had to be Demyx, in his dragon form, and he wasn't in any danger at all - but he was frozen to the spot, paralyzed with fear. Axel didn't react any better; he raced for the nearest cover and hid. The dragon did one loop around the campsite, then swooped towards the ground; Roxas ducked, just in case. He was dimly aware of a thick fog rolling in for a few seconds. "Roxas? What's up?...Why is Axel hiding in the bushes?"

Roxas straightened up, and saw Demyx, in human form, standing next to a large cloth-wrapped bundle. Axel, apparently deciding whatever danger there had been was over, crept out on all fours, looking around cautiously. "Axel is..." He couldn't think how to accurately end that sentence without being misleading, exaggerating, or cruel. Not acting right? Can't talk or sign? Off his rocker? Had a brain transplant from a dog? "Acting weird," he finished lamely.

Demyx looked closely at Axel, who was now standing unsteadily on two feet and cautiously examining him right back. "I guess parting ways with his mind is going to make him a marginally better traveling companion than parting ways with his soul would," he muttered grimly. Axel, seeming to sense disapproval, went back down to all fours and looked up at him pleadingly. "Gods...Vexen would have a bloody field day with him. It's the next step down from a Nobody, and at the same time a close relative of a Heartless - instead of having a heart but no mind or soul, he's got a soul but no mind or heart. I wonder if there's a loose mind running around without a heart or soul." His face was slowly twisting into an expression of rage, and Roxas backed off a step or three. "If I ever see Bai Gu Jing again, she will _beg_ for Avici before I'm through with her. It'll seem like a relaxing vacation." Axel was cowering now, backing away and whimpering like a beaten dog; Demyx leaned over and patted his head. "Don't worry; it's not you I'm mad at. It's the bitch who left you like this." Axel relaxed visibly, and stood up to give Demyx a hug. "Whoa. Okay. That was unexpected."

Roxas scratched his head, bewildered but at the same time trying not to think too hard, lest he come to some very ugly conclusions. "He never seemed to understand a word I said," he said.

Demyx watched as Axel went back to his blanket, stretching out and looking up at Roxas. "I'm pretty sure all he understood was that I was friendly. Think you can get him to collect firewood? I don't know if he can summon fire anymore, with...the way he is, and I don't want to find out very badly right now. Make sure you get some decent kindling." Feeling like an idiot himself, Roxas gestured for Axel to follow him; Axel just blinked at him. He ended up trying to tug Axel to his feet, and then tugged him along after him. Axel picked up on the idea that he was supposed to be following Roxas, but he never did seem to catch on that Roxas was busily collecting chunks of wood. He tried to catch a mouse, that Roxas had scared out of its hiding place under a log, but it eluded him handily. Roxas wondered uncomfortably what he would have done with it had he managed to catch it.

By the time he decided he had enough, including kindling, Demyx had opened the bundle he'd presumably brought with him - the cloth it had been wrapped in turned out to be a couple more blankets, wrapped around a sack of rice, a three-legged iron pot, two wooden bowls, a teakettle, a container of tea, and a few other odds and ends. "...You've been busy," Roxas said.

Demyx nodded. "Traded a new well site for it...was he any help? Oh, well...was he any trouble? Good..." He took the kindling off Roxas's hands, cleared out a space in the middle of the campsite, and sorted out flint and steel from the rest of the bundle. "This is probably late to start the process, but you won't get too far without food, and I don't think you'd like to try to crunch down raw rice...besides, it's not like we're going anywhere in particular..." It took him eleven tries to get the kindling to light and stay lit, using the flint and steel. "...I'd kill for a pack of matches just now."

It wasn't until then that Roxas noticed the bandages on Demyx's hand were gone, along with the one on his neck. There was a faint but visible scar on his throat, and no marks at all on his hand. "How'd you fix yourself up so quick?" he asked, ignoring how Axel was trying to grab the fire. He was succeeding, too, but his powers were at least intact enough to allow him to hold a handful of flame without getting burned, and he was examining it with wide-eyed wonder.

Demyx shrugged as he set up the iron pot over the fire and filled it with water. "Magic."

Roxas nodded warily, as Axel tried to bite the fire. "Does that just happen automatically, or did you -" He stopped, suddenly stricken with the fear that Demyx's mental state - especially his will to live - was really no more stable today than it had been the night before last. If that was the case, he might wake up tomorrow morning, or just turn around at some point, to find he and Axel had been abandoned in the Land of Dragons and Demyx was...gone. He shivered involuntarily. _How far can I trust you?_ he wondered.

"I decided I couldn't afford a disabled hand just now." If Demyx had any idea what was going on in Roxas's head, he was ignoring it.

Axel, having decided fire was not meant for eating, shook away the flame that still clung to his hands and sat down next to Roxas, looking up at him pleadingly. Not knowing what else to do, Roxas patted his head like he would a dog's. Apparently taking that as a sign of approval, Axel dragged his blanket over next to Roxas and stretched out on it again, very like a guard dog. It didn't take him long to start becoming restless again, and as Demyx added rice to the pot of water, he crawled over to investigate, almost knocking over the pot. "Don't do that!" Demyx admonished, pushing him away, and he crawled back and lay down at Roxas's feet, whimpering softly. Roxas felt immensely sorry for him, reduced to this animal-like state, and just had to give him a hug. Surprisingly, Axel seemed to purr a little, like a cat.

A strange snuffling noise caught his attention. He looked up to see Demyx sitting on a log near the fire, blinking furiously. "Demyx, are you...crying?"

"_No_," Demyx said forcefully, and went back to watching the rice cook, giving it an occasional stir with a wooden spoon. His attitude didn't invite further questioning.

Lacking anything better to do, Roxas started thinking. He knew Demyx had the power to heal others almost immediately in this world, by turning into a dragon and breathing on them; was it possible he could...probably not. If he couldn't cure their heartless state, it didn't seem likely he could do anything for Axel right now either. And just what was going on in there, anyway? He seemed all calm and in charge - was he really improving so quickly, or was that just the dragon taking over and he'd go back to being unresponsive to the point of lifelessness when they got home, or was it even just a facade he was putting on to cover his mental instability briefly? What if it was just a facade, and Demyx snapped again? What would happen to them? No way Axel was capable of taking care of himself right now, and Roxas didn't think he could take care of both of them...would they ever be able to get Axel back to normal? Or was he doomed to this subhuman state for the rest of his life?

"The rice is done."

Roxas looked up, his train of thought neatly derailed. Demyx was scooping rice into a bowl, while Axel watched curiously. Once the bowl was full, he handed it to Roxas along with a pair of chopsticks, and Axel switched to watching him instead. His pleading look intensified, and Roxas, figuring he was just as hungry as the rest of them, was about to offer him some rice, but Demyx unexpectedly offered Axel the second bowl. Axel took it, and examined it curiously, and sniffed at it, and started eating with his hands. When Demyx offered him chopsticks, he tried to bite them, then threw them away as inedible. Roxas wondered if there was a third bowl in the bundle he hadn't seen, but Demyx didn't produce one, nor did there seem to be any rice left in the pot. "Demyx, aren't you going to eat?"

Demyx shook his head, acting unconcerned, but his eyes were troubled. "I'm...not especially hungry right now. And I thought you and Axel would need the food worse."

"You're the one who's barely eaten in six weeks."

Demyx shrugged. "I don't particularly need to eat in this world." The bones in his face stood out in sharp relief in the early morning light as he watched Axel and Roxas with concealed longing. "...For the most part."

"You should eat something," Roxas said in a much more tentative voice than he'd intended. If Demyx was refusing to eat, even though he looked so hungry... "Are you okay?"

Demyx glared briefly, and opened his mouth as if he was about to say "Yes" and blow off all Roxas's concerns...but he hesitated, and stopped, seeming to shrink in on himself. "I...don't know how to answer that right now."

Boy, did he not look intimidating just then. "Demyx, eat something."

Demyx shrugged helplessly. "That's all I made, and there's no time to make any more."

"You're the one who said we weren't going anywhere anyway. You've got all the time in the world." Unexpectedly, Axel stood halfway up and offered his half-full bowl back to Demyx, looking uncertain. Demyx gave him a stunned stare for a few moments, then warily took the bowl back, and Axel grinned. "...What was that?"

"I have no idea," Demyx murmured as Axel curled up at Roxas's feet, evidently seeking more approval for realizing Demyx had no food and generously sharing his. Soon, he went back to silently begging for some of Roxas's rice.

Worried though he was, Roxas couldn't help but chuckle at the sight. "All right...if you insist..." He offered Axel a bit of rice with his chopsticks. Axel stared at it with unconcealed puzzlement, then leaned forward and carefully ate it. "Good job!" Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Demyx adding more rice and water to the pot.

* * *

Curious how easy it was to think without a soul.

Axel was aware that thinking had never been a strong point of his, but that knowledge brought with it no discouragement or frustration to cloud his thoughts. Simply lacking a heart had nothing on the sheer emotional blankness caused by lacking both heart and soul - try as he might, it was impossible to even remember what it felt like to feel. Not that he'd put much effort into it. He hadn't cared enough to try. He hadn't even been curious enough to qualify as caring. He was only aware that he no longer remembered. He was also aware that he was supposed to have an excellent memory, and that this was a noteworthy lapse, and that was the extent of his concern.

In fact, the only thing that could be said to concern him was the intense emptiness in his chest.

Bai Gu Jing had explained that that was due to not having a soul - it had been lost to the void, according to her, and without one, he would be lost for eternity at death, as surely as if he'd been consigned to the fires of Avici. The easiest way to change this would be to go out, kill someone, and take their soul as they died, but the bony demoness had had a better offer than that. He was to cause all the fire and mayhem he could, without taking any of the souls that were released along the way - those were for Bai Gu Jing to collect herself. At that, he'd balked, and asked outright why he shouldn't simply kill Bai Gu Jing herself if she didn't intend to let him have a soul. She'd only given him a skeletal smirk and continued explaining - the chaos he wreaked would inevitably lure Lung Qin Xiang and his gold-haired companion; "Demyx and Roxas" were the names his memory supplied. If he were to kill them both, and allow Bai Gu Jing to take the soul of the gold-haired boy, Axel could take the dragon's soul for himself - a dragon's soul, and with it, a dragon's powers. And a soul - preferably the most powerful one he could get - was the only thing he was capable of wanting anymore.

The only complication he could think of was the distinct possibility of being injured or even killed in the process, but Bai Gu Jing had reassured him that his targets would be extremely reluctant to so much as raise a hand against him in self-defense - in fact, their first inclination would be to trust him. He was dimly aware that when he'd had a soul, he'd cared deeply about "Demyx and Roxas", but that thought bothered him not at all.

He sensed the small mountain village up ahead long before he actually saw it - the souls of all its inhabitants, human and animal, called to him and drew him like a magnet. A soft target, towards the interior of the Emperor's domain and therefore largely safe from barbarian invaders, its people unused to having to defend themselves at a moment's notice. Even immune to emotion as he was, he found himself unable to keep from grinning madly as first one bamboo shack, then another, burst merrily into flames, and the bony figure of Bai Gu Jing flitted about like a wraith, gathering the souls of those who burned inside. He had to force himself not to chase after those souls himself, choke back his thirst for salvation - by restraining himself now, and not stealing one of these lesser souls, he was reserving for himself the greatest prize - the dragon's soul. Self-control would grant him near godhood.

Not even an army could keep him from that.

* * *

Lung Qin Xiang knew he'd doused the campfire thoroughly. The faint smell of smoke could not be coming from that. "Roxas, do you smell smoke?"

"Axel always smells like smoke..." Roxas ruffled Axel's hair lightly, and Axel gave him an adoring look - like a dog with its master, Lung Qin Xiang thought. Poor Axel. When his mind was intact, even basic obedience was a trial for him, let alone subservience.

"I'm not Zexion, so I don't think it's him I'm smelling from over here." This was the middle of autumn, or near enough; it wasn't exactly peak wildfire season. And there seemed to be far too much smoke for a simple campfire. "I'm going to go investigate..." He changed to dragon form, noting with regret how Roxas and Axel both flinched, and rose into the sky.

A thick, dark column of smoke was rising from the side of the nearest mountains. If he listened carefully, he could pick out the sound of screaming.

_No wildfire then. It's houses._

He dove for the ground, not caring that he startled the daylights out of Roxas and Axel in the process. "I think there's a village burning," he said as soon as he was able. "Think you can get Axel to ride?"

"...I hope so..." Roxas muttered reluctantly. "Hopefully the village isn't going to burn down while we fight over it..."

Lung Qin Xiang sighed and returned to dragon form. Roxas climbed onto his back first; Axel watched him with wide eyes, not daring to approach too close. "Come on," Roxas said coaxingly. "He won't hurt you. It's safe - see, I'm up here already." Roxas patted the dragon's side encouragingly, and Axel took a few hesitant steps closer. "See, it's okay. There's nothing to worry about." Eventually, Axel crept close enough for Roxas to reach down and pull him up onto Lung Qin Xiang's back. "There, see? You're safe...just hold on tight..."

Once he was sure his passengers were settled and secure, Lung Qin Xiang took off, towards the pillar of smoke. The immediate reaction was a very loud, panicked scream from directly behind his ears. He growled involuntarily, and put on an extra burst of speed as Roxas tried to get Axel to calm down. Hopefully he could manage; if Axel panicked and tried to escape, there would be no easy rescue that didn't involve endangering them both. Fortunately, Axel did hold still - well, "freeze up" would be a more accurate term, and Lung Qin Xiang could feel him shaking slightly. When they finally landed on the outskirts of the village, Axel slid off and slunk away on all fours, looking terrified and more than a little sick. "At least he won't be trying to play in the fire," Roxas muttered.

Lung Qin Xiang shook his head as he changed forms again. "Keep an eye on him. Keep him out of trouble." At this altitude, there was already snow accumulated on the ground; the fire should not have been able to spread so quickly, and yet it had. Something other than natural forces was at work here - something was consciously spreading the fire, it seemed. He had to find that source before he could start to quench the flames, and the sooner the better. As another house ignited, he zeroed in on it, hoping whatever or whoever was causing the fire would still be close by when he arrived.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw something metallic spinning towards him. It didn't register as a chakram until it sank into his gut.

He collapsed to his knees as Axel strolled towards him and yanked the chakram out painfully - but this wasn't the Axel he'd left with Roxas just minutes ago, the pitiful creature with no more mind than a Dusk. This Axel - he seemed intelligent enough to know what he was doing, and his eyes - Lung Qin Xiang had never seen eyes so...empty. "Why did you do that?" he murmured, tasting blood in his throat as he spoke.

Axel stared down at him with utter impassivity, and Lung Qin Xiang noticed his tattoos now extended all the way down his face. "I decided it would be easier to take my reward first."

"Reward...?"

"For helping Bai Gu Jing. Your soul," Axel said in a voice too emotionless to even be considered casual. Of course; this was the loose mind running around with neither heart nor soul.

"Helping Bai Gu Jing...with what?" Lung Qin Xiang asked, mostly to keep Axel distracted while he worked on gathering his strength. If he could reunite this Axel with the Axel he'd left with Roxas...without getting killed in the process...damn it, he should have remained in dragon form...

Axel shrugged. "She wanted the blond boy's soul."

Lung Qin Xiang suddenly felt very cold, and not simply from blood loss and the climate. Of course she did; that had to be why she'd tried to attack Roxas in the first place...and because Axel had gotten in the way, and tried to save him, she was now using Axel as a tool... "What does she want it for?"

"Never said. Where is he?"

Lung Qin Xiang's mind was racing, thinking of ways he could reunite Axel's mind and soul that didn't involve Roxas's soul being stolen by a demon. "I don't know...but I can help you get your own soul back..." He thought he had the bleeding stopped for now, but it wasn't a permanent solution. As much damage as the chakram had caused, there could only be one permanent solution.

He wasn't afraid of it, but he had to get Axel back together first. He didn't especially want his own soul stolen, even by a friend.

Axel looked at him, as if considering what he'd said and weighing it against the demon's offer. "I think you're lying," he said finally, and raised the chakram in preparation for a killing blow. Lung Qin Xiang watched closely, preparing to dodge and change forms as soon as it started to come down - hopefully he'd still have some strength left...

A skeletal, wraithlike form, like a terribly underfed young girl, suddenly appeared between Axel and Lung Qin Xiang. "Finish the boy," she hissed. "Now, or _I_ take the dragon's soul."

Axel transferred his gaze to Bai Gu Jing, as if contemplating whether or not to attack her instead. "Fine," he eventually said, with no hint of the contempt that should have been there, and walked away, with the demoness following.

Lung Qin Xiang waited patiently until they were out of sight, then staggered to his feet, pressing a hand to his stomach as the wound started bleeding again. Gods grant he wouldn't lose his own soul in the process, but he couldn't let the demoness get another shot at taking Roxas's. Thankfully, neither of them seemed to realize he was still capable of following them - but they were heading straight for where Roxas was waiting.

* * *

Had he still been able to feel anything, Axel would have been furious at Bai Gu Jing's insistence that she got the boy's soul before he was allowed to take the dragon's. He might have tried to attack her directly, and get her out of his way, or tried to get around her somehow. Without any sort of emotion to complicate matters, he simply weighed all the choices, with their risks and rewards, and decided that doing as she said would be most beneficial - the dragon was dying, but not immediately; neither his body nor his soul was going to escape in three minutes. If he could kill the boy by then, his work would be over and he could finish the dragon and take his reward before Bai Gu Jing could have second thoughts. Considering how easy it had been to ambush him, it should be simple.

One skeletal finger extended from behind him. "He's hiding in those bushes," Bai Gu Jing hissed, and disappeared. He didn't need to be told where to look; even from here, he could feel the pull of their souls drawing him in...

Wait. Their souls? There should have been only one...had they acquired a companion the demoness didn't know about?

"Roxas?" Yes, that was the boy's name...

There was a startled noise, and some scuffling in the bushes, then the blond boy appeared. His eyes were wide and his mouth was hanging open, but Axel could no more read emotions in others than register them himself. "Axel?! How did you - how are there two of you?" Axel couldn't think how to answer that without giving his game away - he couldn't even make sense of it - so he merely shrugged. "Where's Demyx?"

"He's injured. Come with me." The two sentences had nothing to do with each other, in Axel's mind, but Roxas would read a connection between them and assume Axel would lead him to his companion.

Where was that second soul coming from?

Roxas didn't come any closer, so Axel was forced to take a few steps closer to him. "What happened to him? Are you okay? Your voice sounds kind of funny..."

"Yes. I'm fine." He cocked his arm imperceptibly in preparation to throw the chakram at Roxas's throat. One more second, and his end of the bargain would be completed.

But in that second, he suddenly became aware of something - some - sensation? He didn't recognize it, but...his face flushed slightly, and his lips pulled back from his teeth, for no good reason...because _this person wants to hurt my friend - he can't hurt my friend - ! I'll kill him!_

_...What the hell?_

Axel's concentration was shattered. He whirled around to look at where the second soul he sensed was hiding - and something suddenly sprang at him - someone that looked - just - like - him -

Bai Gu Jing had been lying, he realized in a split second. His soul wasn't lost -

Knocked off balance by the collision, he crashed to the ground, so consumed by rage he could barely see straight. He neither noticed nor cared that whatever - or whoever - had hit him had disappeared. "That bitch," he snarled. "I'll fucking kill her!"

Roxas was staring at him in disbelief as he pulled himself to his feet. "...What the hell..."

Axel grabbed him and shoved him behind his back. "I'll explain later. God, that bitch..."

Just then, Bai Gu Jing shrieked in fury, with an agonizingly piercing note that made Axel want to drop his chakrams and cover his ears. "You traitor!"

"You lied to me!" he flung at her, but he was starting to feel sick - she'd torn away his soul once already, what might she do to him the second time - and what about Roxas - would she use him to attack Roxas again, the way she'd - oh, God, Demyx...

As Axel's legs started to turn to jelly, Bai Gu Jing's bony claws extended to strike - at him? At Roxas? God, no - he'd go through any hell he had to to protect Roxas, but once he had, he couldn't protect him anymore - he couldn't stop her...and as those claws came slashing down, something very big and very blue suddenly slammed into the demoness, scattering fragments of bone. There was one faint, fading screech, and all of a sudden, there was no trace of Bai Gu Jing.

_**Finally.**_

"Demyx? You - wow! Holy shit, you're okay!" Axel couldn't resist the temptation to run up and hug the dragon's nose as best he could - it was the only thing he could conveniently reach.

_**Axel. You're back together.**_

God, yes, he was back together, that hideous cold emptiness was gone, he had a soul, he could feel, he could care... "Yes. Yes. Dammit, I owe you more than I could pay you back for in just one lifetime..."

It didn't seem possible, in a voice that powerful, but somehow Demyx's - thoughts? - seemed to contain a note of weakness...no, more than just a note... _**Is Roxas all right?**_

"Y-yes...I'm fine...is she..."

_**Bai Gu Jing is gone.**_ His - thought-voice - was steady, but...it seemed to be fading...weakening...

Axel took a good few steps back and looked at Lung Qin Xiang - no, Demyx. He was Demyx, even in dragon shape - but - "Oh, God..." A river of dark blood was running from a horrific gash in the dragon's belly - and Axel knew precisely where it had come from. "Heal yourself...quick!"

Almost in the same instant, Roxas came running up to them. "Demyx, Kingdom Hearts, what happened?!"

Demyx turned his huge head to regard Roxas with a faintly amused look in his clouding eyes. _**It doesn't matter anymore.**_

"Heal yourself!" Axel pleaded. God, why hadn't he already?

Demyx gazed at the burning buildings - oh, hellfire, how many people had been killed...? _**I...can't.**_ He slowly rose into the sky, trailing blood down his scales. _**Thank you...thank you both...**_

"_Demyx!_" Axel screamed helplessly, then abruptly turned away and hid his face - he knew what was coming, and he couldn't stand to watch. Roxas clung to him, hiding his face in his shoulder, shaking slightly - he knew it too, he had to. Three seconds of infinite horrible suspense ticked by -

Suddenly there was a blinding flash, that made Axel cringe even though he'd been looking away, followed by a tremendous explosion - like thunder directly overhead. In the next instant, the skies opened, and torrents of rain poured down to quench the fires. Axel slowly sank to his knees as the rain washed out his powers, not daring to look up at the sky - "He's gone," Roxas whispered.

Axel wrapped his arms around himself, his entire body shaking so hard he couldn't have stood up if he tried. _I know,_ he thought. Bai Gu Jing, that bitch, she'd read him perfectly, she'd known he wouldn't be able to resist trying to save a burning village...but Axel was the one who'd thrown that chakram...he'd started the fires...He cried out involuntarily and collapsed. If he hadn't already been so badly injured, Demyx wouldn't have had to die to bring rain...God, soul or no soul, why had he ever trusted that bitch...

"Axel, _look,_" Roxas said in a low, intense voice. Axel didn't especially feel like looking at anything but the mud just then, but Roxas forced him to turn his head. The distraught villagers were gathering and gasping in amazement, as charred skeletons suddenly regrew flesh and set themselves upright and breathed and opened their eyes and asked their relatives what had just happened and did they just have a nightmare about a terrible fire? None of them understood what was going on, but Axel thought he might - all the souls Bai Gu Jing had collected, from the victims of the fire, had been scattered after her death...and Demyx hadn't spent all his remaining power on the rain. Water brought life, after all.

He was unimpressed. He wanted Demyx back.

"Axel? Are you okay?" Demyx asked.

_Fuck this. I'm hallucinating. His voice sounds funny anyway._

"Demyx?! How - how did you - you're -"

"I dunno either - I...oof! Hey! Don't knock me over!"

Then again, Roxas couldn't talk to one of Axel's hallucinations.

Axel didn't go so far as to stand or sit up, but he did roll over and wipe the mud out of his eyes - and Demyx was standing about ten feet away, looking thoroughly dazed and confused, while Roxas hugged him tightly. "Demyx...?"

"I...think so? I mean, I don't really have any reason to believe otherwise, except I thought I just died, but..." Axel instantly sprang to his feet and ran straight for him, sending all three of them sprawling in the mud. "Ack!"

"I don't fucking believe this! Am I dreaming or something? Don't wake me up, just in case!" Axel looked up and looked Demyx in the eye. The strange light-and-depth look, that reminded them he was more than human, was gone. "Are you...not a dragon anymore?"

"No..." Demyx tried to stand up, but couldn't, because Axel and Roxas were lying on top of him. "If one of you would let me get at my hearing aids before they're crushed, I wouldn't have to read your lips."

"Sorry..." Axel and Roxas rolled off him at the same time. "...Are...um...you okay?" No response; Demyx hadn't seen it. Axel waited until he had his hearing aids back on before he tried again. "Are you okay?"

Demyx remained lying on the ground, not caring how muddy it was. "Lemme think about that for a while." There was an almost disbelieving smile on his face, however, and his eyes were shining with very human exultation. "Holy shit...it's over! It's fucking over! No more of those fucking nightmares!" He laughed giddily. "I didn't think it was even possible, but - dammit, I'm free!" After a few minutes of giddy laughter, during which Axel and Roxas stared at each other and questioned his sanity, he suddenly sighed and seemed to calm in an instant. "Thank you. Thank you both."

* * *

"Did he ever esplain what he was talking about? What was over, what nightmares he meant, or why he was thanking you?"

Roxas shook his head. "Explain? He's gone out of his way not to talk about it ever since." Xanrivash hissed thinly in frustration and wrote that down. "But -" Her interest was recaptured immediately. "I think I might be able to guess."

"All right, what do you guess?"

"On the understanding that this isn't going any further than the page you're writing on..." Xanrivash nodded. "Good. I haven't even told Axel this - when he...when he cracked the first time, when he went out and stole the Jade Dragon Ring...you know about all that..."

"Yes...did the ring have anything to do with it?"

"No...but after Axel found him, and talked him into giving up and letting me go...he ran off to the Land of Dragons again. He was trying to kill himself, this time. Axel guessed that was what he was doing, but he was in the middle of a blood sugar crisis and couldn't do anything to stop him until his blood sugar got back up, so I went after him...he didn't want me to save him..."

"Did he attack you?"

Roxas shook his head. "He tried to talk me out of it. Told me I had the most reason to want him dead, and it would be better to let the monster die. I think...now that he's not a dragon anymore...I think, as far as he's concerned, the monster _is_ dead, and he can relax without being afraid of himself and his powers."

Xanrivash nodded pensively, and conversation paused for a several minutes. "He seems to have ajusted to sis mons of washing dishes."

Roxas rolled his eyes. "Pfft. He says it takes less than an hour and a half a day, total, which is less time than any mission has ever taken him, and he has basically the entire rest of the day to do whatever the hell he feels like. He spends over 12 hours a day playing and composing now. It's more like a reward than a punishment." He sighed and scratched his head. "Xaldin still washes the knives himself."

"Xaldin liess knives."

"He likes sharp pointy objects in general, I think. It's not like Demyx is still off his rocker and is going to try to cut his own throat at any given opportunity..." Roxas leaned his head over the back of the bench and looked up at the sky, then looked at the clock tower. "How much longer is this gonna take..."

Xanrivash shrugged expressively. "I have no way of knowing."

"Pfft. Long enough for you to get the whole story, which is probably the whole reason you volunteered to come along now that Axel and I aren't considered appropriate off-world escorts for him without at least one other member..." Roxas sighed. "I bet Demyx is going to be thrilled when he gets off probation or whatever this is considered. Except for the going back on active duty part...never mind. Spoke too soon."

"Is your fault, you realize."

"It's Axel's fault. He came up with the stupid kidnapping idea...well, I guess I can't call it stupid, because it worked...heck, as far as I know, the cover story might have worked if Zexion's nose wasn't quite as keen as it was. He could smell that there had been _two_ portals to or from Twilight Town, one made a couple hours after the other - and that all three of us had gone through the first one at once, but only Axel used the second." Roxas chuckled softly. "Axel just about pitched a fit when he found that out. I just think we're lucky we didn't get punished for it - if we hadn't brought Demyx back responsive and talking, we would have been, I'm sure."

"If you hadn't done it, you two would still be suitable escorts."

"If we hadn't, Demyx would still be slowly wasting away, refusing to talk, smile, or interact with anyone. I wish we'd been smarter about it, sure..."

"You're glad you did it, but you wish you hadn't let Assel plan it."

"...Yeah, that would have been smarter."

Roxas might have said more, but a very long shadow suddenly leaned over him. "Hellooooo, Roxas."

"Gah!...Hi, Ax. What new atrocities have you had committed on your skin this time, since you didn't let me see the lineart?"

Axel grinned. "Can't show you directly, because it's still got bandages over it, but the tattoo artist took a Polaroid." He handed Roxas a color snapshot of his scarred back. The marks from the lash were no longer nearly so obvious under the pair of bright, flaming phoenix wings that had been tattooed over them. "Thought it fit."

Roxas thoroughly disapproved of tattoos in general, but he had to admit that, all things considered - especially the scars they were disguising - the phoenix wings were really appropriate. "It is kinda cool, I guess...so what abuse did Demyx put himself through?"

"You have the most charming ways of describing the process of getting a tattoo...hey, Dems, hurry up!"

"Are you kidding me...showing Roxas tattoos is like playing heavy metal for Vexen..." Demyx jogged the last few steps towards the other Nobodies. His left hand was bandaged halfway up to his elbow, but the faint scar on his throat - which Roxas had expected would have been covered somehow - was still fully exposed. His face looked a little odd, though, and Roxas suddenly realized he'd grown used to Demyx looking starved and skeletal - but that course had also been reversing since their return. He was starting to flesh out all over again.

Roxas still eyed him carefully. "So how much skin graffiti did you get?"

Demyx grinned and blushed a little - well, Demyx blushed all the time for any reason, at least under normal circumstances. "Just the one..." He handed Roxas a couple Polaroid shots of his wrist and hand. "I'd have had it done on my right hand, but that now looks alarmingly normal, whereas my left hand still looks a little freaky from getting bit by a cobra...Xan, please don't look at me like that..."

"Are you ever going to explain what you did to your right hand?" Roxas muttered as he looked at the pictures. He realized a few seconds later that he should have expected this, but at first, he was surprised by what he saw - there was now a sea-blue Chinese dragon coiling around his wrist so that its head was staring up from the back of his hand. Next to the dragon's head, three Chinese characters had been written vertically.

_I'd have thought he'd never want any reminder, let alone such a permanent one... _"What does it say?"

Demyx blushed a little more and tried to look nonchalant. "It says 'Lung Qin Xiang'."

* * *

AN: Finis! This wasn't a three-chapter story, it was more like a trilogy!

Remember the tattoos Axel and Demyx got at the end of "Into the Nexus"? They just got another set. Refer to "A Few New Scars" if you want to know when Demyx got bitten by a cobra. And yes, Xanrivash has a weird accent.


End file.
